font size affecting the legibility between Dark & Light modes

[Stephen_H]

I notice the dark mode is easier to read than the light mode. The letter shapes are a bit blotchy and merge into each other reducing the legibility. I suspect 2 reasons for this:

1 - The font size. When I export a file from Designer, the system font in Apple looks perfect. It's a few points bigger which gives my screen a few extra pixels to render the letters. I think the fonts need to be the same size that Apple uses. (Large font in the preferences doesn't affect this – just panels etc.). If it's not the size, perhaps the font being used? maybe use Apple's system font, as is?

2 - The higher contrast in the light mode. Black text on a 10% grey BG has a 90% contrast difference. In dark mode, we get 20% grey on a 80% grey BG (figures are guessed) which results in a 60% contest difference. This lower contrast makes the fonts seem better aliased and more consistent. The think the black text needs to be a bit grayer to reduce the contrast. This goes for all the elements like ruler markings.

This is what I'm referring to. You can see the difference side-by-side:

:

 

Any thoughts on the topic? Am I being difficult? I like the light mode, but the dark mode seems a bit more refined.

 

[A_B_C]

Oh, I don’t believe you are difficult. I also believe that the small label font should be one step bigger in Affinity Designer and Photo. Below is a comparison between some macOS Finder sidebar labels (set to “small”), some Affinity Designer panel tab labels, and some labels taken from FontLab VI. All of these happen to have the same (or almost the same) background color, and when you are not on a Retina screen, I believe you will immediately see a difference in legibility due to the difference in font size … (just to be sure, it does not make much sense to consider the argument when you view the attached image on a high density screen) … 

[Stephen_H]

On 6/9/2018 at 5:20 PM, A_B_C said:

Oh, I don’t believe you are difficult. I also believe that the small label font should be one step bigger in Affinity Designer and Photo. Below is a comparison between some macOS Finder sidebar labels (set to “small”), some Affinity Designer panel tab labels, and some labels taken from FontLab VI



Hi. I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at... all the text seems mostly the same (Affinity's column is slightly different, but I'm really pixel peeping here)

Are you saying Affinity should be using a different font to achieve the same legibility rather than font size?

[MEB]

Hi Stephen_H,

A_B_C agreed with you and captured some sample text from labels/tabs in different applications to show that Affinity apps are indeed using a smaller point size than others he's running on his system (Finder and FontLab used as examples for comparison). I also agree that increasing the text size a little here will greatly benefit readability on non-retina systems.

[Stephen_H]

Thanks MEB for clearing it up. Maybe my screen is supremely bad.

[A_B_C]

MEB is my perfect interpreter.