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You know I'm a dreamer
But my heart's of gold
I had to run away high
So I wouldn't come home low
Just when things went right
Doesn't mean they're always wrong
Just take this song and you'll never feel
Left all alone
Take me to your heart
Feel me in your bones
Just one more night
And I'm comin' off this
Long & winding road
I'm on my way
Home Sweet Home
Ok, whinge time. So I’ve designed this really nice Flash site, and it’s all done up in Helvetica Bold 57.
I’m on the fence in the Helvetica Wars. I’m definately more against than for, but there are some jobs where you can’t fight the power and you kinda just HAVE to use it. Just Because. Cos it is what it is. The Megalodon, the undeniable, the Coca Cola of fonts. The font that makes people who see it instantly curl up in the foetal position and suck their thumbs, basking in the lukewarm syrupy bubble of safety and trust instilled by seeing something you ingest via osmosis 50 billion times a day without realising it. Mmm… Like someone said in the Helvetica movie, “it’s like air”. I’d say it’s more like carbon monoxide, but either way, people can’t suck down enough Helvetica. So, on those rare occasions I break it out, I want it to do what it’s meant to do: be unassuming, nonchalant, fill people’s tiny little hearts with confidence in whatever Big H is telling them, and just look undeniably Right.
So here we are, good to go. Looking great in Photoshop, time to start laying it up in Flash.
Oh dear. First question is: why the fuck can’t Flash ever find Bold fonts? All the rest are in the list, why no Bold. Skip to trusty workaround, embed some Light or Regular text in my textbox (in this case Helv 55 regular), select it and hit Bold button. Great, that kind of vaguely resembles Helvetica Bold now. Let’s render it out.
Oh fucking DEAR. Why is it, in 9 versions of Flash, they still can’t render text so it doesn’t look like total shit. Chuck on “anti-alias for animation”, and I’m Mr Magoo with no glasses. Let’s try it with “anti-alias for readability”… yep, you can read it now. Too bad it now looks like Helvetica 56.7 Fucking Ugly Half-Condensed 1 Point Taller With Fucked Up Spacing.
On writing this, my textbox is stretched 102.5%w x 95%h, with custom anti-alias at -150, -200, and i’m about 85% happy with it, with not a lot of options left.
It might be too late to not sound like a whingey prick. I’m not. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this problem, it won’t be the last, and at the end of the day I don’t mind cos I love Flash dearly. I’d just wish the good people at Adobe would mate their nice Photoshop anti-aliaser with Flash’s hideously deformed banjo-playing one, and create something that looks right. And, if Flash could see my Bold fonts, that would be great too. Whinge over :)
