Re: [libreoffice-design] Bold and Italic icons

Good point, sorry about that.

At any rate, I'm not convinced that a single letter -- upper- or
lowercase -- is clear enough for a couple of reasons:
1. Iconography -- which is what an abstract uppercase "A" really is --
can be more confusing than language unless that icon is really clear.
2. The difference between the "A" when capitalized & bolded is not clear
enough in most fonts that would look good on an interface. It's a really
subtle change.

That said, consistent order in the placement of the images, immediate
feedback, and familiarity with the system(s) will probably be enough to
override the above, but I think it's worth noting just for the sake of
discussion, anyhow.

Whatever font is currently used for international symbols and signs,
though, might be the place to start.

- sabin

On 3/15/2012 3:56 AM, Sveinn í Felli wrote:
> Þann fim 15.mar 2012 03:55, skrifaði King Duck:
> > I think it's because the words for bold and italic change depending on the
> > language. If you just use a character and show the effect, it tells the
> > user what it does without having to refer to a specific word.
> >
> > ~ Maggie
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 7:01 PM, Sabin Densmore <sabin@onegecko.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Just out of curiosity, is there a particular reason we're not using "B"
> > > and "I" to indicate Bold and Italic? I don't care either way, but am
> > > curious as to why.
> > >
> > > For what it's worth, Thunderbird (what I'm using now) uses a capital
> > > letter "A". It's just hard to tell the difference between an italic "A"
> > > and a non-italic "A".
> > >
> > > - sd
> I've responded to a similar question before:
> <http://www.mail-archive.com/design@global.libreoffice.org/msg03712.html>
>
> Saw also that someone asked why not use lowercase letters. It's the
> same principle; uppercase *A*, /A/ and _A_ should be recognisable as
> *pictograms* representing the first letter of the Latin alphabet.
> There is a reason why signs read "EXIT" and not "Exit" at
> international airports - and also why those are progressively being
> replaced by symbolised person/arrow/door.
>
> Just thoughts.
>
> Sveinn

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