• pyre@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      4 days ago

      they’re called lowercase numbers and they’re designed to look good in paragraph text. for example if you’re reading this comment, mentioning the year 1997 suddenly puts four full height characters as if I typed one word in all caps, while in lowercase numbers it would look more like if I typed the word iggy (1 is x height while 9 and 7 have descenders like g and y).

      they’re not designed to be used in math or for longer number sequences. for that you have the full height (uppercase) numbers that most typeface should still have.

      0123456789 in lowercase have the same heights as oizgjpbyfq - just as random as that word’s letter heights are. which is not random at all, you’re just not supposed to use it like that.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          4 days ago

          idk what you mean by universal; this is a typographical choice. the only reason you see more uppercase numbers everywhere is because of typewriters and by extension computers. I don’t think people make a point of lining numbers up with cap height in handwriting.

          • Tiefkuehlkost@feddit.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            4 days ago

            But we are speaking about a Computer Font right now, idk what that has to do with handwriting and who cares about handwriting in 2024. With universal i mean that any kind of number should look god, no matter if its a Telefon Number, a Price or a Street Number.

    • pseudo@jlai.lu
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      4 days ago

      Their shape is beautiful (from 3 to 9) but why were they not written on the same line?