If you enjoy reading articles on the web, you may feel that the typefaces used leave much to be desired. So much creativity is lost due to restrictions in the use of copyright protected type. Reading on computers has never been as easy as on traditional paper, much effort went into the early Macintosh Operating System (Mac OS) to create a font which would look good for the interface elements, such as the menu items. A new typeface (font) was developed based on the Linotype classic Helvetica, it was called Geneva. Whilst it was an excellent font to provide clear menu titles it was never going to be a winner from a stylists point of view. In my early days with the Macintosh operating system, I joined in 1991 with the OS at version 7.0; a new PowerBook 140, purchased whilst working in Hong Kong. I bought a copy of TypeStyler and was able to impress all and sundry with dramatic headline banners!
The Internet and the web in particular has never provided the level of typographical control that you can wield in a publishing programme like Quark Express or In Design, for print. A brief flirtation in the mid nineties with a Bitstream technology that allowed you to embed font characteristics in web pages was another loss leader I bought into, but it was killed off by Microsoft I recall, not allowing it to be ported to the then up-coming rival to Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer.
So you can imagine that when I was looking for a more stylish typeface for my Parlington History and blog sites recently, something to reflect the historic letterforms of days long gone, I was impressed by a typeface called Candara, which ironically is shipped with Microsoft Vista and Office. So I felt there was a good chance that many of my readers could benefit from the more stylish look of this face. I hope you agree. For those that are viewing this in Trebuchet that do not have Candara installed here is an image of how the type looks in its various forms.
