[pianotech] shades of gray

[Ron Nossaman]

Hi Wally,
Yep, looks like they got someone young making font decisions 
in front of a 36" high resolution Mac monitor. Everyone's a 
graphic artist these days.

I checked it out, and it's pretty dramatic and REALLY easy to 
fix for ALL subsequent printings. The font appears to be the 
same, and the same size, but the stroke is much lighter. The 
new version is kerned tighter (which may just be because of 
the stroke width), and the leading (between lines) is wider 
than the old version. That makes for a whole lot of white air 
in the type, which makes it fuzz into gray visually. You've 
got a legitimate gripe.

Going back to a heavier stroke and wider kerning with the same 
font, will make it readable again. Going back to the old 
tighter leading (11 instead of 12 ) will compensate for the 
wider kerning and get back whatever was lost in line wrap and 
justification with the broader letters, so they'll still be 
able to print skinny Journals and not lose anything except the 
unreadability.

Get the layout person a low resolution 13" monitor, and things 
till improve right away.
Ron N