Kerning is next, little one.
September 16, 2014 6:37 AM Subscribe
Anyone who calls it 'helbetica' is okay with me.
posted by nushustu at 6:45 AM on September 16, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by nushustu at 6:45 AM on September 16, 2014 [5 favorites]
Forgive me as I am old, but what is the point of teaching your kid various fonts and using flash cards to test?
posted by 724A at 6:47 AM on September 16, 2014 [11 favorites]
posted by 724A at 6:47 AM on September 16, 2014 [11 favorites]
the chickening?
posted by FirstMateKate at 6:56 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by FirstMateKate at 6:56 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
724A: It really impresses font geeks on the internet.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:56 AM on September 16, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:56 AM on September 16, 2014 [8 favorites]
Forgive me as I am old, but what is the point of teaching your kid various fonts and using flash cards to test?
posted by 724A at 11:47 AM on September 16 [+] [!]
I don't think the purpose is to teach her fonts, per say. But to be able to recognize and recall minute detail. Also memory. Fonts are probably coincidental.
posted by FirstMateKate at 6:57 AM on September 16, 2014
Forgive me as I am old, but what is the point of teaching your kid various fonts and using flash cards to test?
This strikes me as one of those things that's weird enough that the kid came up with the idea herself.
posted by dismas at 6:57 AM on September 16, 2014 [10 favorites]
This strikes me as one of those things that's weird enough that the kid came up with the idea herself.
posted by dismas at 6:57 AM on September 16, 2014 [10 favorites]
I don't know if I should be impressed at the girl or scared by the parents (? I am sort of joking about the latter...)
posted by gen at 7:01 AM on September 16, 2014
posted by gen at 7:01 AM on September 16, 2014
Forgive me as I am old, but what is the point of teaching your kid various fonts and using flash cards to test?
How else would fine young hipsters raise their offspring? You should see the fixie mom and dad got her for her birthday. And the tiny-house dollhouse (tiny tiny house?)
posted by Thorzdad at 7:01 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
How else would fine young hipsters raise their offspring? You should see the fixie mom and dad got her for her birthday. And the tiny-house dollhouse (tiny tiny house?)
posted by Thorzdad at 7:01 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
what is the point of teaching your kid various fonts and using flash cards to test?
Probably pretty big to make the flash cards readable. I would go with 72pt.
posted by burnmp3s at 7:03 AM on September 16, 2014 [70 favorites]
Probably pretty big to make the flash cards readable. I would go with 72pt.
posted by burnmp3s at 7:03 AM on September 16, 2014 [70 favorites]
Maybe her parents are graphic designers and want to share that?
Or maybe it's just a semi-successful way to distract her from the Lovecraftian horror that resides in her mom's mouth?
posted by graphnerd at 7:10 AM on September 16, 2014 [14 favorites]
Or maybe it's just a semi-successful way to distract her from the Lovecraftian horror that resides in her mom's mouth?
posted by graphnerd at 7:10 AM on September 16, 2014 [14 favorites]
The parents are bold.
posted by davebush at 7:11 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by davebush at 7:11 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
Kids this age like to exercise their brain and their muscles all the same, and some stay that way till old age. The exercise doesn't really have to make sense.
posted by hat_eater at 7:11 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by hat_eater at 7:11 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
Maybe her parents are graphic designers and want to share that?
I can't imagine actual, for-real, designers drilling their kids on fonts. Honest. Fonts are tools for us, not important life lessons. This strikes me as entirely the work of the same sort of adults who fetishize formerly "professional" tools like Blackwing pencils.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:22 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
I can't imagine actual, for-real, designers drilling their kids on fonts. Honest. Fonts are tools for us, not important life lessons. This strikes me as entirely the work of the same sort of adults who fetishize formerly "professional" tools like Blackwing pencils.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:22 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
OK, again forgive me for my ignorance, but I am old. What is "the chickening"?
posted by 724A at 7:43 AM on September 16, 2014
posted by 724A at 7:43 AM on September 16, 2014
graphnerd: "Maybe her parents are graphic designers and want to share that?"
If they were, they wouldn't bother using Verdana as an example.
posted by adamrice at 8:03 AM on September 16, 2014 [8 favorites]
If they were, they wouldn't bother using Verdana as an example.
posted by adamrice at 8:03 AM on September 16, 2014 [8 favorites]
I'll fess up: I've talked semi-seriously about decorating my kid's walls with large black and white letters in different fonts. When I was learning the alphabet as a little kid, I noticed there were different ways to make certain letters, and it fascinated me (the two-story g in particular).
And I admit to getting cranky about how every damn daycare form is in Comic Sans and what are we teaching our children about design, but I also admit that it's a silly and pretentious thing to get worked up about, and it's not like I know everything and have never committed my own typographical sins. Besides, if you judge daycares on their font choices, you're probably staying home with the kid forever.
It's my interest, not my kid's. If he'd rather find out what's in my mouth, I'll indulge that whim instead.
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:07 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
And I admit to getting cranky about how every damn daycare form is in Comic Sans and what are we teaching our children about design, but I also admit that it's a silly and pretentious thing to get worked up about, and it's not like I know everything and have never committed my own typographical sins. Besides, if you judge daycares on their font choices, you're probably staying home with the kid forever.
It's my interest, not my kid's. If he'd rather find out what's in my mouth, I'll indulge that whim instead.
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:07 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
Thighlander 2: The Chickening. There can be only one.
posted by wabbittwax at 8:10 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by wabbittwax at 8:10 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
I became obsessed with messing around with fonts when I was a little kid (though definitely not as little as Scarlett) and yeah, it's a memory game, both kid and mom are enjoying it, it makes as much sense as memorizing farm animals or fraggles or anything else you can imagine, it fulfills the basic function of just talking with kids that age, that developmental psychologists are thinking is perhaps the number one advantage a parent can give to a child, and most importantly, it calms the mom's eldritch mouth demon with the knowledge that he can inflict otherwordly punishment on the girl if she gets one wrong.
So I'm really not seeing the problem here.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:19 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
So I'm really not seeing the problem here.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:19 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
Could have sworn the series was called Deep-Frylander
posted by bitteroldman at 8:20 AM on September 16, 2014
posted by bitteroldman at 8:20 AM on September 16, 2014
So I'm really not seeing the problem here.
The problem is that they are parenting in a way that I am not parenting so they are bad parents.
posted by bitteroldman at 8:22 AM on September 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
The problem is that they are parenting in a way that I am not parenting so they are bad parents.
posted by bitteroldman at 8:22 AM on September 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
Forgive me as I am old, but what is the point of teaching your kid various fonts and using flash cards to test?
My dad used to be a woodworking supergeek and would quiz me periodically on types of joints. He'd sketch them out on the backs of envelopes at the dinner table, pass them over to me, and then say things like "now, is that a mitred joint or a butt joint?" and it would actually be a dovetail joint, and I'd be all "daddy, you're silly, it's dovetail!" and he'd look over at my mom all.
posted by phunniemee at 8:38 AM on September 16, 2014 [10 favorites]
My dad used to be a woodworking supergeek and would quiz me periodically on types of joints. He'd sketch them out on the backs of envelopes at the dinner table, pass them over to me, and then say things like "now, is that a mitred joint or a butt joint?" and it would actually be a dovetail joint, and I'd be all "daddy, you're silly, it's dovetail!" and he'd look over at my mom all.
posted by phunniemee at 8:38 AM on September 16, 2014 [10 favorites]
724A: "Forgive me as I am old, but what is the point of teaching your kid various fonts and using flash cards to test?"
To get another hit of that sweet, sweet Youtube fame?
posted by pwnguin at 8:38 AM on September 16, 2014
To get another hit of that sweet, sweet Youtube fame?
posted by pwnguin at 8:38 AM on September 16, 2014
Alex, I'll take 'How to build a future pedantic' for $400.
I see this little girl staring in a early 00's horror movie three years from now where she's clubbed her group members for a class project to death with her iPad. The librarian of course finds her, W sitting in a pool of their blood and she's gazing off into oblivion. Rather than make eye contact, she continues to chew slightly, and her hard shift on her iPad wiping some blood from her face. Still staring off into space, she says 'They wanted to use A non-kerning font. I had to tell them no, but they just wouldn't listen.' Pan to the librarian who rushes to embrace her, heavy breathing, and with a tremor of her voice she says. 'Its okay, you did the right thing. They all need to be punished.'
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:58 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
I see this little girl staring in a early 00's horror movie three years from now where she's clubbed her group members for a class project to death with her iPad. The librarian of course finds her, W sitting in a pool of their blood and she's gazing off into oblivion. Rather than make eye contact, she continues to chew slightly, and her hard shift on her iPad wiping some blood from her face. Still staring off into space, she says 'They wanted to use A non-kerning font. I had to tell them no, but they just wouldn't listen.' Pan to the librarian who rushes to embrace her, heavy breathing, and with a tremor of her voice she says. 'Its okay, you did the right thing. They all need to be punished.'
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:58 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
I don't think the purpose is to teach her fonts, per say. But to be able to recognize and recall minute detail. Also memory. Fonts are probably coincidental.
Maybe. I bet they're a hobby of the parents, in some way. My 4yo daughter knows about mashing, and sparging, and boiling, and multiple hop additions, and cooling the wort before you add the yeast, and she has some idea of what a floating hydrometer does, and what the yeast are up to for all those days in the fermenter. It's not "real" knowledge -- it's just a bunch of stuff that her brain soaked up. It's transitory.
Likewise, I don't think this kid will be able to tell Helvetica from Comic Sans in a couple years, but it's all good. Exercise that noggin.
posted by gurple at 9:09 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
Maybe. I bet they're a hobby of the parents, in some way. My 4yo daughter knows about mashing, and sparging, and boiling, and multiple hop additions, and cooling the wort before you add the yeast, and she has some idea of what a floating hydrometer does, and what the yeast are up to for all those days in the fermenter. It's not "real" knowledge -- it's just a bunch of stuff that her brain soaked up. It's transitory.
Likewise, I don't think this kid will be able to tell Helvetica from Comic Sans in a couple years, but it's all good. Exercise that noggin.
posted by gurple at 9:09 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
And I admit to getting cranky about how every damn daycare form is in Comic Sans
You should check out the forms/docs sections of your local public high school. Neither good taste or mockery seems to make this font any less unkillable. Hell, my company's HR dept seems to have decided it's a perfect font for all but the most SRS BSNS uses.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:11 AM on September 16, 2014
You should check out the forms/docs sections of your local public high school. Neither good taste or mockery seems to make this font any less unkillable. Hell, my company's HR dept seems to have decided it's a perfect font for all but the most SRS BSNS uses.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:11 AM on September 16, 2014
what is the point of teaching your kid various fonts and using flash cards to test?
Beats me. But I don't know why you would teach kids to recognize different sports teams and root for some and not for others, yet parents do it all the time. Sensible parents should do what I do and teach toddlers to call out "Patrick Troughton!, #2" "Sarah Jane!" "Sylvester McCoy, #7" "Ace!" "John Pertwee, #3!" "Liz Shaw!" "Colin Baker, #6" while scrolling through classic Doctor Who cards.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:14 AM on September 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
Beats me. But I don't know why you would teach kids to recognize different sports teams and root for some and not for others, yet parents do it all the time. Sensible parents should do what I do and teach toddlers to call out "Patrick Troughton!, #2" "Sarah Jane!" "Sylvester McCoy, #7" "Ace!" "John Pertwee, #3!" "Liz Shaw!" "Colin Baker, #6" while scrolling through classic Doctor Who cards.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:14 AM on September 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
I wanted the last font to be Comic Sans, and when the mom says "what's this font?" she says "the devil!"
posted by gurple at 9:15 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by gurple at 9:15 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
Comic Sans is in her mouth!
posted by Navelgazer at 9:16 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 9:16 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
My answer to all of the flash cards would be, "Who gives a shit?"
posted by Chuffy at 9:28 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Chuffy at 9:28 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
So....Metafilter had a kid?
posted by dr_dank at 9:49 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by dr_dank at 9:49 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
> It's my interest, not my kid's. If he'd rather find out what's in my mouth, I'll indulge that whim instead.
You're gonna make the best Mom.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:58 AM on September 16, 2014
You're gonna make the best Mom.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:58 AM on September 16, 2014
But I don't know why you would teach kids to recognize different sports teams and root for some and not for others, yet parents do it all the time.
I think it's the flash cards that take it over the top. Because quizzing a kid on sports logos with flash cards would be equally questioned.
posted by smackfu at 9:59 AM on September 16, 2014
I think it's the flash cards that take it over the top. Because quizzing a kid on sports logos with flash cards would be equally questioned.
posted by smackfu at 9:59 AM on September 16, 2014
You should check out the forms/docs sections of your local public high school.
As far as I can tell, some researchers studied 27 student survey responses to font legibility, who when asked said they liked comic sans most, but Ariel was a close second. And now every teacher uses it everywhere because 'readability.'
posted by pwnguin at 10:01 AM on September 16, 2014
As far as I can tell, some researchers studied 27 student survey responses to font legibility, who when asked said they liked comic sans most, but Ariel was a close second. And now every teacher uses it everywhere because 'readability.'
posted by pwnguin at 10:01 AM on September 16, 2014
Before I could read I could identify every aircraft in my Dad's big aeronautics book. Now I can barely distinguish a plane from a helicopter.
Little kids' brains are weird, selective sponges. They don't have enough world experience to know what information is essential and what is pointless. The girl seems really inquisitive. I bet this came out of some questions she asked and now it's become a game. It certainly doesn't require weeks of crazy Rogerian conditioning.
posted by RokkitNite at 10:16 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
Little kids' brains are weird, selective sponges. They don't have enough world experience to know what information is essential and what is pointless. The girl seems really inquisitive. I bet this came out of some questions she asked and now it's become a game. It certainly doesn't require weeks of crazy Rogerian conditioning.
posted by RokkitNite at 10:16 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
I hope that she'll look back upon her childhood fontly.
posted by Chitownfats at 10:22 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Chitownfats at 10:22 AM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
The parents made this video so that I could send it to the devs in my office and say "See, this 3 year old can tell the difference between fonts, why can't you?"
posted by fontophilic at 10:25 AM on September 16, 2014 [13 favorites]
posted by fontophilic at 10:25 AM on September 16, 2014 [13 favorites]
And I'll clean up the extra pedant point category, and note that she is identifying typefaces not fonts.
posted by fontophilic at 10:29 AM on September 16, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by fontophilic at 10:29 AM on September 16, 2014 [8 favorites]
Fonts are tools for us, not important life lessons.
The same could be said of fractions.
posted by hellphish at 10:30 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
The same could be said of fractions.
posted by hellphish at 10:30 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
I admit to getting cranky about how every damn daycare form is in Comic Sans
Yes, this was the thing that nearly convinced me to run for the nursery school board...
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:26 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yes, this was the thing that nearly convinced me to run for the nursery school board...
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:26 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
And I admit to getting cranky about how every damn daycare form is in Comic Sans
A friend of mine got laid off from her preschool job, and her pinkslip was in Comic Sans. I was disappointed, however, to learn that the letters on it weren't all different colors.
posted by aubilenon at 2:10 PM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
A friend of mine got laid off from her preschool job, and her pinkslip was in Comic Sans. I was disappointed, however, to learn that the letters on it weren't all different colors.
posted by aubilenon at 2:10 PM on September 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
So what was in her mouth! I want to see!
I'm guessing the mom was just mouthing the answers to the kid.
posted by mazola at 2:38 PM on September 16, 2014
I'm guessing the mom was just mouthing the answers to the kid.
posted by mazola at 2:38 PM on September 16, 2014
A long long time ago, when I had questionable ethics, it occurred to me how simple it would be to make a (network) worm.
Sounded like a fun project that would be exciting and challenging. My next step was to come up with a suitable payload. The only thing that occurred to me was to delete Comic Sans from every computer on the planet.
I didn't follow through (obviously), and my ethics evolved, but I still wonder if it would have indeed been the right thing to do.
(I forwarded this on to parent friends of mine who will hopefully be inspired to teach their little ones some pedantic pieces of knowledge).
posted by el io at 3:08 PM on September 16, 2014
Sounded like a fun project that would be exciting and challenging. My next step was to come up with a suitable payload. The only thing that occurred to me was to delete Comic Sans from every computer on the planet.
I didn't follow through (obviously), and my ethics evolved, but I still wonder if it would have indeed been the right thing to do.
(I forwarded this on to parent friends of mine who will hopefully be inspired to teach their little ones some pedantic pieces of knowledge).
posted by el io at 3:08 PM on September 16, 2014
I worry that the younger generation is not learning Bookman, Eurostile, Avant Garde or Hobo.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:26 PM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:26 PM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm guessing the mom was just mouthing the answers to the kid.
Ahh, the "Clever Sans" phenomenon!
posted by Chitownfats at 6:39 PM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
Ahh, the "Clever Sans" phenomenon!
posted by Chitownfats at 6:39 PM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
To be more explanatory, The Chickening is to OITNB what Fly is to BB -- one of those episodes that you either love or hate for its digression and obsession. The protagonist, Chapman, spends much of the episode chasing a live chicken around the prison yard (there are a number of B stories, which is half the point, though). By intention or accident, it was the S1 "Just checking, are you with us, or are you with us?" episode.
posted by dhartung at 9:44 PM on September 16, 2014
posted by dhartung at 9:44 PM on September 16, 2014
But can she distinguish between a hypen, a minus sign, an en dash, and an em dash? Hmmmm?
posted by Kabanos at 2:45 PM on September 19, 2014
posted by Kabanos at 2:45 PM on September 19, 2014
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posted by cjorgensen at 6:41 AM on September 16, 2014 [5 favorites]