Tips on Type
Kudos to Editor Chris Dickman: Here's a free font that sucks. Recently, a new alphabet was designed to assist the visually impaired with readability. That segment of the population is growing due to the surge of baby boomers. Though I applaud their initiative, little information is available about how this font was developed, and it doesn't look like many typographers were involved. Almost every consideration in their approach is contrary to what I learned in all those typography classes at art school. 
APHont, designed by The American Printing House for the Blind, was specifically created for readers with vision problems. It incorporates consistent stroke widths and large punctuation marks. Designer Paul Nini says that APHont may not be an aesthetically pleasing typeface, but he thinks it’s a starting point for accommodating the needs of aging eyes. His article focused on signage, but the APHont alphabet was designed for reading text. There's a big difference between Braille and font design, just as there is between text and signage. Here's why I don't think it is the new font for readability. Mr. Nini is more subtle than I am—swoosh . . . whack!
Typographers are intimately familiar with how the eye sees type. Fonts used in primers are similar to New Century Schoolbook (apt name) so one factor is familiarity. Familiar fonts are easier to read because recognition assists the eye. Since type is read not by the positive area, but the negative area; that makes the second factor contrast. The third factor is capture; easily read type is in high contrast to its background with tightly captured negative space. No amount of tight kerning will capture space with a san serif font and in fact, too much kerning will make that space completely disappear, so the fourth factor in readability is the serif. Choosing a serif font will bring into play two factors of readability; recognition of familiar primer fonts and capacity to tightly constrain 
negative space between characters. The serif of each letter encapsulates the X-height of the face and centralizes a reader's focus on distinctive recognition characteristics. The APHont incorporates none of these basic premises of readability. This doesn’t mean you shouldn't use a san serif font in design occasionally—just restrict yourself to short copy blocks or headlines. And these are the rules for the long and hard read, not the light and fluffy; so stop moaning—I’m not trying to restrict your creative freedom. Signage is a whole other animal, and only a signage expert like Steve Neumann has all the answers. Steve Neumann & Friends is an award winner in Houston, and a guy who knows signs because he knows typography.
These guidelines don't just apply to text prepared for the visually impaired. The success or failure of designing with type includes all the media competing for attention; your audience neither has the time nor inclination to lovingly read every word you write. Clients frequently forget not everyone is devoted to their cause like they are. There are better books to read, movies to watch, text messages to answer and iPod downloads; advertising comes last. So easy-to-read copy and quick message delivery is imperative. When copy becomes work for your audience, they will abandon you. Both long line length and ALL CAPS make large blocs of copy difficult to stick with. And what about that line length? The general rule for line length was determined by taking the average eye's visual sweep from left to right. Through studying eye muscle movement, they discovered the greatest distance of that sweep without fatigue is 18 picas.* So if you’ve got a copy heavy brochure or text, keeping the line length within that measure will make it easy and quick to read.
Personal computers have lifted the barriers to copysetting and I know more than a few typographers who get their share of hearty laughs each time an award show goes up. The amateur typesetters are everywhere, sitting at their keyboards pecking away at the regression of professional typesetting. I hope when they see the new readable typeface for the visually impaired, it inspires them to take the lead and design something beyond APHont. Use these tips to better serve your clients the next time you design something that requires more than a few sweeps and a quick glance. 
*Didn’t learn point, pica and agate measures? No worries: There’s 72 points or 6 picas to an inch; agates are used in newspapers to measure depth and there are 14 to an inch. My apologies to the Metric crowd.
Topic courtesy of Richard Laurence Baron III at his site.
Medical illustration courtesy of Patrick J. Lynch and C. Carl Jaffe, MD cardiology
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I'm going to disagree with you and all of the conventional wisdom, Susan (funny, but I had this same conversation with another art director not that long ago).
When we owned our newspapers, we went through four changes in technology -- from raised type to offset to phototypesetting to computers -- in about twenty years. When we made the first switch, we were stuck with limited choices; the IBM Composer was still a little pricey for our little papers, so we first used two or three Olivetti carbon ribbon typewriters that allowed us a modicom of quasi-proportional spacing. They were only available in sans-serif type -- and the response was that the newspaper was a lot more readable.
Until we sold them (not quite ten years ago), we occasionally experimented -- putting out versions in both serif and sans-serif typefaces, and every time, when people did comment, they preferred the sans serif as being easier to read.
I will grant that the community we served is rural and for most of the time had a larger-than-normal proportion of elderly folks; that may have contributed to the response. But you'll have to go quite a while before you convince me that just because everyone has always said that serif typefaces are easier to read, that in fact, they are.
For that matter... if serif typefaces are easier to read, then why do most websites (including yours) use sans serif faces?
Just askin'...
ep
SDK responds: Dear Newspaper Boy--how I love justified type (gag). Very little art direction is involved in most newspapers, especially small ones. Regular readers note changes quickly--especially when they are motivated to read the local gossip as opposed to something trying to sell them something. Websites with small copy blocks of san serif type don't present much of a challenge; and readability isn't an issue. But my copy heavy website uses a classic SERIF font named Copperplate 29ab. Uh-oh, you must be one of those baby boomers; or, take off your eskimo snow goggles.
There's no reason to be snippy when you're wrong, Susan -- just take your lumps and move on. The assumption that we didn't take artistic values into account is all well and good, but I doubt you ever saw our papers when we owned them -- so I'll assume it's just a gratuitous comment designed to make us poor newspaper folks feel less worthy than the Artistes who inhabit the graphics industry.
We didn't justify either (except for legal notices, where it was required by contract, and classified ads) -- again, because of readability.
I'll be the first to agree that most serif typefaces look nicer, or are prettier, or are even more creative, than most sans-serif faces. But that doesn't make them generally more readable; if it did, then no one would use sans-serif faces except to be different.
SDK responds: You're right on one point—I've never seen one of your newspapers, but I'm sure it was above average with your extensive knowledge of the industry. No feather ruffling intended, Eric; just having fun with a difference of opinion.
It's interesting that the design of this font, including the lack of serifs, was based on "formal research" by a number of institutions. If in fact this research is applicable to the design of fonts, one might wonder why more fonts aren't designed this way? Instead, current font design practice is based on thousands of years of real-world usage. Which has led to such axioms as serif fonts being in many cases easier to read when used for body copy.
Recent research versus accumulated knowledge about what works--I guess we all get to decide which approach we're comfortable with. Perhaps both sides have something to learn from the other?
Recent research shows that sans-serif fonts are more readable on a computer screen, while serif fonts are more readable on printed pages. That's because print and screen are two different animals. The computer screen emits light that constantly flickers. Although the flickers are unnoticeable, it becomes tiring to read serifs. The Verdana font was specifically designed for the web. While it won't win any typographical awards, this font (and others like it Arial and Helvetica) is very easy to read on screen. Again, that's on screen, not in print.
SDK responds: The proper term is sanserif, though many of the same expert web design books quoting "recent research" use the misnomer sans-serif. I question the nature of the research and the typographic education of the "experts". Good design still applies
no matter what the media: page, scrolling page, video screen, backlit or black velvet or even basketballs, for that matter.
I work for a smaller newspaper though it is the second largest in the state of Maine. Over the past twelve years that I have been employed the paper has gone through extensive changes as Eric mentioned his paper went through. I will note that the Sun Journal went from a Times New Roman type to Utopia - it is still a serif font but the serifs are less prominant than in Times. Our readers perception was that the typesize was larger when in fact we had gone down in size.
I am proud of my newspaper and it's graphics and design and encourage you to take a look at the PDF pages available for viewing on our website www.sunjournal.com - scroll to the bottom of the webpage for a link.
Ah... Susan, great comments!
Many of the points are very much the same as the 'typography' segment of seminars I conducted for In-House Graphics and Dynamic Graphics in the late 1980s and 90s.
Let me say that the 'quest' for the perfect type face design goes on and on. However, during the 1970s a great deal of research was conducted on the readability of type faces under stress..
At a time when Europe was declaring Helvetica as the optimum font for highway signs, other research was investigating typography in motion, at great distance, in low-light situations, and other stressful reading situations. It was shown many times over that in fact (the much overlooked face) Optima proved more readable for type under stress -- architectural markings, vehicle lettering, type in motion. The subtle thicks and thins along with the suggested (but non-existent) serifs provided the additional negative space contrast necessary for legibility.
Today, the advent of the internet has spawned a new generation of face designers presented with new challenges of the pixel. Drawing letterforms with little squares, a 72th of an inch, points to square terminations and 45-degree angles. Highly readable in pixels on a computer monitor but very ugly if presented in print larger than 12 to 18 points.
I surely enjoyed the blog posting... keep up the great work.
Fred
I remember back before the studies were done that showed that we read shapes, and not along a line, designers were saying that serifs helped guide our eyes along the line. Now they say things like "serifs help constrain the negative space," or something to that effect.
An interesting observation I've made over the years is that it is "designers," and not "normal" people, who say serifs are easier to read, it's like an Article of Faith to them. Ask a Dyslexic what they think about serifs, my favorite quote being "All those little ticks getting in the way."
"Current font design practice" is not "based on thousands of years of real-world usage," but dates from the late 1400s when Venetian printers adopted Humanist script to Roman Capitals, in other words, they added serifs to the miniscules.
BTW, the proper term is sans serif, not sanserif; and sans-serif is acceptable.
SDK responds: Not according to page 1477 of my Oxford English Dictionary which says the correct term is san serif—there are no references anywhere in the dictionary to sans serif or sans-serif, including secondary usages. Along with several professional type books I refer to regularly, the correct term is san serif; as my old friend Dennis says irritatingly, "Look it up."
I did looked it up in the OED and it's "sans serif," or "sansserif," with an s! What OED are you using? Although, Websters does give "san-serif" as a variant. You can also go to Dictionary.com, or Wikipedia, or even look at the font categories of a site that sells fonts -- it's always listed as Sans Serif or Sans.
SDK responds: Okay, Chuck. My Oxford English Dictionary says "Sanserif" [app.f. SANS prep.+SERIF]--that means taken from the French, so if you're French and saying the word without, then say SANS, as in "I'll take my whopper SANS mayo." But the proper typography term (and don't quote Wikipedia because all kinds of pseudo experts edit that) is SANSERIF (one word, two Ss). Post your question on www.typophile.com and start a discussion; but have the good sense to discern between real experts and people who think they are experts. People who set type for a living know the difference. Marketing people don't.
"and don't quote Wikipedia because all kinds of pseudo experts edit that" Come on now, I reference numerous sources, including the OED, and you chose to single out one.
"Sans" is both a French word and an English word. Here is the etymology -- Origin: 1275–1325; ME
At the FontShop they have a category called "Sans," now don't tell me Eric Spiekermann et al. are not "real experts."
The etymology didn't show in the last post.
Origin: 1275–1325; ME - OF sans, earlier sens, seinz a conflation of L sine without, and absenti? in the absence of, abl. of absentia
SDK responds: You've covered the word SANS but not SANSERIF. There may be a section called SANS but there isn't a section called SANS SERIF because that would be incorrect.
Re: sans-serif
How about Mark Boulton, British graphic designer, who learned typography by hand-setting type in the 70s?
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/typeface_of_the_month_gill_sans/
It's a little past the full display of the alphabet in Gill Sans.