Comment by munificent
12 years ago
> Just because you have higher resolution screens, doesn't mean you can get away with a thinner sans serif.
Yes, it does, actually. As resolution increases, so does the Nyquist frequency, which means you can accurately convey higher-frequency signals. In spatial terms, more resolution means finer lines without aliasing errors.
Surely there is a hard limit on this though (unless we have bionic eyes and/or small expanding robot fingers (like in ghost in the shell (http://youtu.be/PkyZGZRnQb4)))
Certainly, there is. Laser printers print at about 300 dpi and most users can't see any visible pixels there, so at normal reading distance, that seems to be close to the maximum resolution you need to visibly pixel-free from the user's perspective.
Going higher than that probably means thinner blank lines will just appear fainter and not thinner.
A 0.01mm line is going to be invisible on a super high res is going to be pretty much invisible, regardless of Nyquist frequencies.