Though commonly accepted, the superiority of serif typefaces is heavily disputed by growing sects of the typographic and scientific community (Poole, 2008). The argument in favour of serif typefaces is that they guide the horizontal ‘flow’ of the eyes (De Lange et al., 1993), allow for ample spacing between characters (Sassoon, 1993; Rubinstein, 1988), increase the contrast between individual letterforms (Reynolds, 1979) and allow words to bind into ‘functional wholes’ (Poulton, 1965), and that people generally prefer to read large bodies of text if they are set in a serif typeface. Others argue that Serifs actually disrupt character discrimination and add uneven appearance to the shape of strokes and characters (Degani, 1992). Additionally, as stated by Poole, if there are indeed any differences in readability it is ‘[likely that they are so peripheral to the reading process that this effect is not even worth measuring (citing Lund, 1999), and that a greater difference in legibility can easily be found within members of the same type family than between a serif and a sans serif typeface (citing Tinker, 1963; Zachrisson, 1965). There are also other factors such as x-height, counter size, letter spacing and stroke width which are more significant for legibility than the presence or absence of serifs (citing Poulton, 1972; Reynolds, 1979). Finally, we should accept that most reasonably designed typefaces in mainstream use will be equally legible, and that it makes much more sense to argue in favour of serif or sans serif typefaces on aesthetic grounds than on the question of legibility (citing Bernard, 2001; Tinker, 1963)]’ (Poole, 2008)
