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Paul Shaw
Personal blog · paulshawletterdesign.comdesignwritinghistory
Paul Shaw's personal blog at paulshawletterdesign.com covers design, writing and history. Since 2023, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 4 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Linked for typography and letter-design history: a post on the BIC Cristal pen's ubiquity, and an article on Arial's origins. Comments cite a related book review and dispute a claim in the Arial article.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
What Hacker News says?
Two articles on it (which probably were part of the source for this one): - https://www.penaddict.com/blog/2016/1/17/bic-cristal-ballpoi... - https://www.jetpens.com/blog/How-the-Ballpoint-Pen-Changed-t... a book which has a bit on the usage of this and similar Bic models is: https://www.paulshawletterdesign.com/2012/12/blue-pencil-no-... (ob. discl., I received a copy (which I gave to my daughter) to write the revi…
Comment linking /2012/12/blue-pencil-no-21-zapfiana-no-2-what-our-lettering-needs/
on “How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous”Submitted Blue Pencil no. 18–Some history about Arial as a story · 43 points
HN discussion> When Microsoft made TrueType the standard font format for Windows 3.1, they opted to go with Arial rather than Helvetica, probably because it was cheaper That's a myth. Microsoft paid a lot of money to MonoType, as I believe they needed to task several full-time employees with the manual hinting of those fonts. The deal probably saved the foundry from bankruptcy. "As to the widespread notion that Microsoft did not…
Comment linking /2011/09/blue-pencil-no-18%E2%80%94some-history-about-arial/
on “The Scourge of Arial (2001)”Submitted Gilgengart: The Tale of a Typeface (2013) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion