I just stumbled upon lesswrong.com while searching for information on Zettelkasten and I must say this site is STUNNING! This is some of the most beautiful typography I’ve seen, anywhere! The attention to detail is exquisite! I haven’t even gotten to your content yet! This will probably remain a permanently open tab in my browser… it’s a work of art!
If you’re interested in LW2′s typography, you should take a look at GreaterWrong, which offers a different and much more old-school non-JS take on LW2, with a number of features like customizable CSS themes. (Available builtin themes include a ‘LW1’ theme, a ‘LW2’ theme, and a ‘RTS’ theme.) There is a second project, Read The Sequences.com (RTS), which focuses on a pure non-interactive typography-heavy presentation of a set of highly-influential LW1 posts. Finally, there’s been cross-pollination between LW2/GW/RTS and my own website (description of design).
In the interests of giving equal screen time to the (friendly!) ‘competition’, here’s yet another viewer site for Less Wrong—one which takes an even more low-key and minimalist approach:
Good question. I will try to explain why the typography is noteworthy, rather than the mechanics of making it so. First, the small sans-serif font here is exceptionally readable. That isn’t easy. Site-specific browser magnification is typically necessary on other websites.
Next, there is the range of choice offered within the user interface for comments. Having a choice of LaTeX, markdown, rich text (as well as built in features such as footnotes) for posts would be unusual, yet LW offers it for comments as well!
Finally, please see gwern’s examples for LW2 linked above. I find GreaterWrong challenging to read, and confusing to navigate. Not for me, but maybe for thee! ReadTheSequences uses serif fonts but has traditional typographical elements that give it elegance, yet is still spaced and kerned such that it is easily readable. The more elegant typeface is used sparingly, for important LW1 posts which is part of good typography too. Hope that helps.
I just stumbled upon lesswrong.com while searching for information on Zettelkasten and I must say this site is STUNNING! This is some of the most beautiful typography I’ve seen, anywhere! The attention to detail is exquisite! I haven’t even gotten to your content yet! This will probably remain a permanently open tab in my browser… it’s a work of art!
If you’re interested in LW2′s typography, you should take a look at GreaterWrong, which offers a different and much more old-school non-JS take on LW2, with a number of features like customizable CSS themes. (Available builtin themes include a ‘LW1’ theme, a ‘LW2’ theme, and a ‘RTS’ theme.) There is a second project, Read The Sequences.com (RTS), which focuses on a pure non-interactive typography-heavy presentation of a set of highly-influential LW1 posts. Finally, there’s been cross-pollination between LW2/GW/RTS and my own website (description of design).
Thanks to gwern for the mention of GW/RTS!
In the interests of giving equal screen time to the (friendly!) ‘competition’, here’s yet another viewer site for Less Wrong—one which takes an even more low-key and minimalist approach:
https://lw2.issarice.com/
Shows only blank white page RN. Mind to update/delete it?
It’s not my website, so that question isn’t really for me, sorry.
Oh, good, I’ve contacted the owner and they responded it was necessary to get their IP address whitelisted by LW operators. That should resolve soon.
W-o-W!!! Thanks so much for these links!
Could you expand on what makes the typography noteworthy? I’m completely unaware of this topic, but curious.
Good question. I will try to explain why the typography is noteworthy, rather than the mechanics of making it so. First, the small sans-serif font here is exceptionally readable. That isn’t easy. Site-specific browser magnification is typically necessary on other websites.
Next, there is the range of choice offered within the user interface for comments. Having a choice of LaTeX, markdown, rich text (as well as built in features such as footnotes) for posts would be unusual, yet LW offers it for comments as well!
Finally, please see gwern’s examples for LW2 linked above. I find GreaterWrong challenging to read, and confusing to navigate. Not for me, but maybe for thee! ReadTheSequences uses serif fonts but has traditional typographical elements that give it elegance, yet is still spaced and kerned such that it is easily readable. The more elegant typeface is used sparingly, for important LW1 posts which is part of good typography too. Hope that helps.