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Written by Typographica on 2025-01-16 at 23:38

Don’t look it up; just give your gut reaction:

In a font family that includes “Book” as a weight, is it lighter or heavier than Regular/Normal?

(This question has been asked in various ways and fora over the years, but it’s been a while. I’ll link to the old discussions after the survey ends.)

[#]TypeDesign #Fonts #Typography

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Written by Typographica on 2025-01-20 at 08:15

Three truths I hope are revealed by this survey’s results and discussion:

1. There is no consensus on the relative weight of “Book”. (In some type it’s lighter than Reg, in others it’s heavier. And the varying assumptions of respondents demonstrate that.)

2. There is no consensus on the meaning of “Book” beyond weight.

3. “Book” may be an ok word to use in a family name, but it is not a good word for a style within a family.

[#]TypeDesign #Fonts #Typography

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Toot

Written by Typographica on 2025-01-20 at 08:29

In 2018 @alphabettes ran the same poll and got similar ambiguous results (just in the opposite direction, with more lighter than heavier).

On their blog is a good summary by @veryrobin and analysis of a corpus of fonts by @tosche_e and @akira1975: http://www.alphabettes.org/dear-alphabettes-what-defines-a-book-weight/

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