We don’t have to slavishly adhere to them, but we shouldn’t just toss them because they developed around yesterday’s technology. Partly because I’m old partly because standards evolved for a reason. Drop caps are so old-fashioned, so don’t use them the power of font and size choice, and the resulting reflow, trumps elegant typography etc. People urge me to not apply print standards to ebooks.
Will Amazon Guidelines be updated to provide some how-tos in using these features?. will it hyphenate capitalized words or names?. 
Will it hyphenate compound words (self-destruct-ing)?. Will it allow ladders (2 or more hyphens in a row)?. will words hyphenate after the first 2 letters of a word? In my typesetting work, I never hyphenate after 2 letters. This screen grab is from Amazon’s announcement. If we can’t get one standard for all ebooks, at last let’s push for the different environments to deliver quality books. Amazon doesn’t seem to have any plans to go to EPUB3, and will instead stick with KF8/Mobi, so this is an indication that they’re determined to improve their product. It would have been hard to make it worse - especially for those using early Kindles - for folks accustomed to well typeset pages. Amazon did announce this week (link below) that for iOS and Fire tablets ( only these platforms more devices and apps coming sometime later this year), a whole suite of reader-facing enhancements is being implemented.īack in the Fall I heard some talk that Amazon was serious about improving the Kindle’s reading experience. Professional typesetting standards are now supported! We can provide high-quality ebooks to our readers, knowing that a drop cap will align nicely with the baseline we spec and word-spacing will be distributed without making us think we’ve fallen into the Grand Canyon in some lines. Bookish typefaces like Sabon, Palatino, Lexicon or FS Brabo would work just as well, but they’d be licensed not owned.Īs far as if this sets a trend, I’d say yes, but more because of licensing than design.Amazon has done us all a favor and added hyphenation and a new font (Bookerly), and has refined its support for drop caps. It is more than likely that Caecilia was dropped because of licensing costs so Amazon used the opportunity to create their own font.īookerly is a nice typeface and works well, but is no better than any other text font on high resolution screens like the Kindle. “Created for licensing, not to solve a design problem”įontsmith creative director and founder Jason Smith says: “In my opinion Bookerly was created for licensing reasons – not to solve a design problem. Front and back covers – both flexible – the smell of ink, subtle shades of paper, printed spines and the right size to hold and read them anywhere, without looking at a light and without disturbing whoever is sitting or lying next to you.” They are okay to replace cheap paperbacks, but real books have more to offer. I’m not holding my breath for the future of e-books. 
But it still runs out of batteries, cannot be read in bright light and won’t survive a fall. In other words, a page on a Kindle has finally almost achieved the look we’ve had in books for 500 years. The layout also looks like a proper book page, albeit with bad hyphenation – 4 hyphens in a row already on the first page! “Almost achieving what books did 500 years ago”Įdenspiekermann co-founder Erik Spiekermann says: “The Bookerly typeface is lovely and appropriate but nothing new for book designers.
We asked two typography experts whether they think the changes set a precedent for e-readers.
Amazon have also tackled the Kindle’s typesetting problems with a new layout engine, with improved text justification, drop caps, kerning and image positioning. The introduction of the new typefaces is arguably one of the most significant changes to the model.
#AMAZON KINDLE BOOKERLY FONT BLUETOOTH#
It now also includes twice as much memory as before and built-in Bluetooth audio support, which allows visually impaired users to use the VoiceView screen reader without needing an adaptor. The new Kindle is more rounded in design than previous generations in order to make it easier to hold in one hand, according to Amazon. Amazon has introduced the next generation of Kindle, featuring a “thinner, lighter” design and new fonts such as Bookerly and Ember – both designed collaboratively with Dalton Maag.
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