Robin Rendle on the nature of the web:

[T]he web will always be a wild and finicky canvas for us to work with; we’ll have to be creative in the ways that we help older browsers that don’t support these features. So although I don’t believe that the web hates beautiful typography, there certainly is a tension between the web and the old typography, where control over every element on the page was relatively easy and absolute.

Rendle on accessibility:

What about accessibility and the preservation of the text? Making sure that everyone can simply read the text in every browser is more important than just about any typographic flourish that we can implement. And so with that in mind, whenever we stumble over a new feature for the web we have to question whether it will truly improve the reading experience.

He concludes:

There are infinite futures of typography, and the opportunities only expand when new browsers, new features, new devices become available to us. All that’s required is a little patience and a healthy dose of curiosity.

Simon Loxley, Type is Beautiful, (p.2):

Typefaces communicate moods and feelings: some are considered elegant or refined, while others seem bold, radical or whimsical. Typefaces can reflect the fashions or the zeitgeist of an era, often to a surprising degree. Some typefaces were created for a specific purpose. Some are easy to read and draw little attention to themselves; others are meant to grab your attention, but only for the purpose of a few words. Which font is chosen for any given communication matters a great deal, since it conveys a whole world of meaning, both blatant and subliminal, and much time, thought and money continue to be spent to try to get it right.

Simon Loxley, Type is Beautiful, (p.23):

Without the italic, typography would be visually the poorer, and in practical terms, in its primary aim of communication, severely compromised.

Ann Bessemans, Digital Fonts and Reading, (p.29):

A remarkable finding from the objective legibility research is that children with normal vision read with reliably fewer errors when the serif typeface DTL Documenta was used, rather than the sans serif Frutiger. This result is somewhat surprising because children (especially beginning readers) mainly read with a sans serif in primary school.

The following notes come from Robert Bringhurst in Palatino: The Natural History of a Typeface.

On the beauty and structural clarity of letterforms, (p.10):

Human language appears to serve, in human cultures, a role not entirely unlike that of sexual reproduction in plant and animal biology: it is evidently a primary vehicle of exogenetic heredity. It appears to me that The beauty and structural clarity of letterforms, and their profligate, luxurious economy, are of real and practical use in this regard, just like the beauty, structural clarity, and profligate economy of flowers.

In short, it seems to me that the art history of letters and the natural history of letters can and should be understood as essentially one and the same.

On serif, (p.245):

Serif—those little entry and exit strokes through which the writing hand and the reading eye like to find their way into and out of a letterform—are also a means by which letters tie themselves into a line: a form of graphic social bonding.

On Zapf, (p.265):

In type design, as in literature, music, and painting, some of the great names—Baskerville and Caslon will do as examples—belong to people with one persistent style. Zapf was more like Picasso: an artificial highly unusual range and inventiveness.

On the remaking of type, (p.269)

Because typography is a practical art no less than it is a fine one, type has to be constantly remade.

On classification, (p.271):

We need to forget the classifications and look at the thing itself, but in order to understand the thing itself, we also need to see how it is related to everything else. And that is the point—really, the only point— of taxonomic classification.

On the ecosystem of type, (p.274)

Language, like a cello or piano, can give the savor, just the savor, of physical existence to visions that the heart can never tell and the eye can never see. Type, as a bearer of language, can do the same—not any better, but over a broader space and longer time than spoken language. That is to say, it enlarges the ecosystem.

Open a book, the performance begins. Close it, it ceases. There is nothing to watch, nothing to hear, but something happens. The mind reaches into the heart, the gut, the throat, and dances with the body. It also dances with a voice speaking out of another body: one as close as your inner ear through it might be at the same time several centuries, oceans, and mountain ranges away.

Type, unless no one uses it, never exists in isolation. The more it is used, the more it is part of its cultural watershed. Letterforms and fonts can be studied, measured, and observed, like animals and plants. But as soon as we isolate or dissect them for closer, more methodical comparison, they cease to be what they were when they were functioning parts of system to which them belong.

Yi Ding, It’s My Type, (p.14):

People love seeing beautiful things, because it’s a spiritual enjoyment. There’s no right or wrong, pretty or ugly typeface. Typefaces themselves are like costumes, which are made for different roles and different sets. It is best only when it fits.

Panos Vassilious, It’s My Type, (p.12):

Good type design is an attempt to achieve the perfect balance between geometric perfection and optical perfection, a balance between our rational mind and our free-spirited artistic nature. It is exactly this attempt to achieve a visual balance using the rational modular shapes of the alphabet that drives me and excites me during the designing process.

We don’t just need good typefaces; we need typefaces that communicate better, typefaces that offer real market solutions, typefaces that sell products, typefaces that reflect local market trends and culture. There are already too many commercial fonts in the market. It is time for companies to seek bespoke solutions if they want to differentiate themselves from competitors.

Valery Golyzhenkov, It’s My Type, (p.10):

We need more good typefaces. Because they help the communication; that’s the most important part. A good typeface, along with good typography can deliver more than just information.

Patrick Griffin, It’s My Type, (p.8):

Typeface is the medium in which the content is delivered, so there’s a direct correlation there: If you don’t use an appropriate face for your content, you are indicating that you have little respect for your message—and that lack of respect makes its way to the reader.

Paul D. Hunt, It’s My Type, (p.8):

We need good typefaces for the same reason as we need anything that is well-designed—to inject more beauty into our life. Reading is a big part of interfacing with ideas and concepts and that process should be as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. Pleasing typefaces allow us to focus more intently on the content of a message and less on the form.