Are Tiny Pixel Fonts Dead?

I personally don’t like smaller pixel fonts due to the their lack of readibility. I do still think they have a place on some tech orientated sites though.

I’d love to see some examples of good pixel font usage.

Also … small print in *print media* where also thew copyright notices and disclaimers. They where obligated to be part of eg a poster, very small print and pretty unreadable. This would be used for web too , therefore you see it a lot in footers.

Citing from (http://blog.fawny.org/2005/03/15/sxsw2005-15a/)

Question from woman in audience: Is teeny-tiny pixel text a trend or a long-term solution? They’re tuned for today’s large pixels compared to laser printers. Josh suspects it’s a trend, “a local hack, if you will. It’s certainly not a bad thing, and it’s resulted in some terrific typography, but pixels are eventually going to get so small that you can’t have a single-pixel stem.” You may have different tiers of information, like footnotes (at several millimetres) and headlines (much larger). Mike says you can design an outline font that looks like a pixel font, but pixel fonts “will always remind you of the ’90s… and is always going to remind us where we come from.”

There still is a need for it. Particularly for small screens new fonts are still developed. Look:

http://www.schroeder-wendt.com/02_research-development/03_pixel-fonts/index.html

P.J.

Do you think that a pixel-font could work i a relative font size world, though?

Ah yes, pixel fonts… I used to love those, and I used them on quite a few projects. Unfortunately, they feel a bit ‘passé’ now - you know, just like the rounded corners, pastel gradients and oversized fonts of today will in a few years.

File these in the same folder as isometric art, it was great while it last and I’m fond of those memories, but I wouldn’t use them on a project today.

PS: they are great for coding though.

Size is not the only thing that matters. Leading (space between lines) is extremely important in regards to readability. Also a good knowledge of how paragraph spacing should be used is important. See http://www.attitudedesign.co.uk/journal/?p=44 - I hope it might help.

Tiny fonts are hard to read.  I would think that the primary purpose of a hard to read font would be when you write stuff you do not want the anybody to read.  Proposing an act of Arab terrorism perhaps.  Nasty insults directed at the webmaster?  The whole point of putting text up on the web is to get people to read it.