Thomas Phinney on Quality

One of the giants of type at Adobe comments and gives insights on what quality means to him

Typographer Thomas Phinney of Adobe, at his blog Typblography, takes the time to explain his concerns about font and typeface quality in the post Quality in Typefaces & Fonts.

Quality is a word which gets thrown around quite a bit in the modern world, usually as a superlative meant to get attention. Phinney asks us to consider what true quality means in fonts and typefaces, makes important distinctions between the two, and delves in depth about the attributes of quality to each. Essentially, he points out, typeface quality speaks to aesthetics and optical perception, while font quality speaks to technical concerns, such as the font conforming to the format’s specifications and whether or not it plays well with the applications that should use it.

The post is aimed at both the beginner and the typefounder, and is a valuable insight to how a digital typographer sees their work as well as a call to typefounders everywhere to keep the quality end up by thorough and use-appropriate testing of fonts.

Phinney’s blog itself is highly linkworthy and deserves regular reading by all.