Thread: Which Caecilia Is It?
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Old 01-10-2011, 01:17 PM   #1
EatingPie
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Question Which Caecilia Is It?
Linotype has four varieties of Caecilia. I am wondering which the Kindle actually uses as the default font.

Caecilia Light - Unlikely, since it's too low contrast.
Caecilia Standard - Just called "Caecilia."
Caecilia Bold - You'll understand below why I singled this out.
Caecilia Heavy - A Bold Bold or Extra-Bold font.

I demoed a Kindle against a Sony Reader (both Pearl) and remember there being a noticeably better contrast in the Kindle font. When I loaded Caecilia (standard) on my Reader, it really didn't give any greater contrast than Sony's default font.

However, I was able to create a higher contrast family by mixing Caecilia Bold and Caecilia Heavy. I used Caecilia Bold / Bold Italic for the Roman and Italic fonts, then used Caecilia Heavy / Heavy Italic for the corresponding Bold fonts. I am wondering if this is how Amazon does it also with the Kindle, as it results in a significant contrast improvement.

So I'm curious if Amazon uses just plain Caecelia by default, or do they "artificially" increase contrast by using the Caecilia Bold/Heavy mix as the default font.

-Pie
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