If your typography is going to be incorrect you might as well cut it out of metal.
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No. Dumb Quotes. Why use the quotes here at all?
Hopefully the ghost of Jack Dempsey will punch the designer of this sign.
Please do not use dumb quotes.
Via Rich Watts, via radian.org.
Even InDesign’s Type Preferences get it wrong! (via DESIGNinista)
This is a still from the awesome parody show Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. In theory this dumb quote could be part of the gag, but somehow I doubt it.
We nabbed this still from The Art of the Title Sequence.
So they get the fractions right, but not the primes? And by “right” I mean they didn’t just do this “7/8.” I probably would have kerned the 8 away from the slash, but who am I to judge?
Spotted by Beverly Joel in The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934.
Another set of curly quotes when dumb old primes would have been perfect. I guess these are not as rare as we originally thought.
This fine specimen comes to us via John Gruber of Daring Fireball fame — our first guest submission.
Once again, we have that rare instance of smart quotes being used when primes would be correct. With auto-complete smart quotes in most programs we’re sure to see more of this in the future.
Which one of these is not like the others? If you guessed “Simon’s” you get the door prize.
I guess we are officially showing websites now. I hate to do it, but this is so wrong, especially on what is normally such a beautiful site.
In the end, I would say that of course it is always preferable to use type correctly, but typography is the servant of meaning, not the master. If straight quotes, however much of a modern bastardisation of type they may seem, enhance the meaning of a piece (or if curved quotes would distract the reader), then you must use them. Otherwise, don’t.
Ministry of Type on March 6th, 2008.
We are still waiting to be shown an example of the supposed enhanced meaning that a “straight quote” might provide. We’ve also been waiting to see a unicorn.
Another menu spotted in Austin, TX.
So they can figure out how to bevel the type, stroke it twice, and add a drop shadow, yet typing in the correct apostrophe is too hard to get right?
Smart shirt. Dumb apostrophe.
Menus are not generally worth mentioning but what is interesting is that they use the correct apostrophe for Friday’s but not for Daniel’s.