Questions about look and feel.

[Mike Wickham]

> 2.  Do people think that a Sans Serif font improves legibility for body
> text?

Using a sans serif font for body text greatly reduces reader comprehension. 
Obtain a copy of Colin Wheildon's _Type and Layout: Are You Communicating or 
Just Making Pretty Shapes?_ The book contains actual studies showing the 
effects on readability and comprehension of serif vs. sans serif fonts, 
color type, bold and italic type, justified paragraphs, etc. It's a 
fantastic book:

http://www.amazon.com/Type-Layout-Communicating-Making-Pretty/dp/1875750223

Book designers really need to pay attention to these kinds of things. I'm 
seeing more and more books with sans serif body type that might be good for 
a Web page, but not for a book. Recently, I ordered a book that was on a 
unique topic in my field. I awaited it excitedly. At first glance upon 
arrival, it struck me how pretty the book was, which excited me more. Then I 
tried to read it. I couldn't! My eyes just could not stay trained on the 
lines for long.

The book broke every rule. It had tiny type, sans serif body text, headings 
with no capitalization, headings in every color of the rainbow, including 
some that were yellow and nearly invisible on the pages. All recto pages 
have color backgrounds. Do you know how hard it is to read tiny, thin, black 
type on a blue page? Anyway, the book was clearly a designer's dream, but 
it's a reader's nightmare. I still haven't read more than a few paragraph's 
from it.

Mike Wickham