January 29, 2013

Am I the Only Person Left Who Hates Anti-Aliasing?

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I’m not trying to pick on the New Republic here, but I’m curious about something. They launched a redesigned website yesterday, and here’s how the main text font renders on my PC:

Why does it look so bad? Because I’m running Windows with ClearType turned off. Does anyone else do this, or am I the only person left on the planet who finds ClearType intolerable for day-to-day use? If I’m the only one, then I understand why some magazines don’t bother optimizing their body fonts for either mode (it’s not just TNR). But if I’m not the only one, then why not use a font that works for everyone?

PREEMPTIVE TECH NOTE: Yes, my monitor is running at its native resolution. Yes, I know how to set up ClearType. Yes, I know that most people prefer the mushy look of anti-aliased type. But I don’t, and never have. I’m just curious about whether I’m a lone holdout at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if I am. ClearType has been turned on by default in Windows for many years now, and my guess is that very few people these days realize it’s something they could turn off even if they wanted to.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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