5 ms·

Two Teeny Tiny Fonts

55 points by bensummers 17y ago

Hates_ 17y ago
I've yet to find a download link for the first font "The Bee’s Knees".
- _delirium 17y ago
  The article says: "At the time of writing, neither font is available for download".
- bensummers 17y ago
  The original and best: http://minifonts.com/mini7.html http://minifonts.com/mini7.html But not as small, of course.
  - JayNeely 17y ago
    I find Silkscreen to be the tiny-font of choice. And it's free: http://kottke.org/plus/type/silkscreen/ http://kottke.org/plus/type/silkscreen/
arnorhs 17y ago
How well, if at all, do these fonts scale upwards?
- henrikschroder 17y ago
  Not at all of course, they're bitmap fonts that rely on subpixel rendering.
  - henrikschroder 17y ago
    Basically: This font is created such that it looks good when subpixel-rendered at a size of 3px. If you wanted text larger than 3px, you would not ever want to use this font, you would use something else that can either be regularly rendered at your chosen size, or subpixel-rendered at your chosen size.
- romland 17y ago
  It's a bitmap font, so it scales as any pixels would but far from well when it comes to readability. If you look at the 1600% up-scale you get a good idea what I am talking about. I remember making these types of fonts myself back in the Amiga days just to fit it on bootsector(s) (memory fails me here, was it one or two?). The difference then was that sub pixel rendering was not an option, and fixed width fonts at this size always looked bad (i vs m), so you'd have to be careful how you wrote things. :-) Without having ever experimented with subpixel rendering I am intrigued by the fact that « is made a whole lot more "blue" than » -- spontaneously one would think it would simply be a matter of mirroring the glyphs (obviously not) :)
  - ComputerGuru 17y ago
    The subpixels are RGB in that order. So the heavier "image concentration" on the right side means there'd be more blue.
  - thristian 17y ago
    If you want to experiment with subpixel rendering, and you have a reasonably modern Firefox, I made a subpixel-rendering toy a while ago: http://zork.net/~st/Toys/subpixel-sketch.html http://zork.net/~st/Toys/subpixel-sketch.html If you don't have a modern Firefox, there's a screenshot here: http://zork.net/~st/Toys/subpixel-sketch.png http://zork.net/~st/Toys/subpixel-sketch.png
    - PebblesRox 17y ago
      That's neat, but I wish I could click and drag to change multiple pixels at once, instead of clicking and clicking and clicking.
- goodside 17y ago
  This well: http://grab.by/2eT3 http://grab.by/2eT3 That's from the Mac OS X zoom function. Interestingly, it's far more readable than the zoomed-in graphic on their page.
qjz 17y ago
At the other (and more preferable) end of the solution: What current technology offers the most pixels per square inch? How far away are we from a 1080p PDA/smartphone screen?
- shalmanese 17y ago
  LCD Projectors fit 1080p in ~0.75" diagonal for roughly 3000 pixels per square inch. That seems to be roughly the limit of our technology.
  - Retric 17y ago
    As a side note 4x 1080p projectors fit with that assumption. The 4K resolution of the new panel, which measures 1.64-inches diagonally, translates to 8.85 megapixels and is four times the resolution of full HD http://www.gizmag.com/epson-2160p-lcd-projector-panel/13333/ http://www.gizmag.com/epson-2160p-lcd-projector-panel/13333/
Mark_B 17y ago
If nothing else, be sure to check out the Ken Perlin's homepage (he's the guy behind the second font). http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/ http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/
petercooper 17y ago
If we could render Hacker News with this system, think of how many more stories we could get on the front page. I vote Aye.
petercooper 17y ago
BTW, if you want to quickly see how this text looks on an iPhone, etc, I made a shortlink direct to the demo image so it's easier to type on there.. http://bit.ly/tinytext http://bit.ly/tinytext
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  Note that as it relies on subpixels it'll only work as intended in one orientation on iPhone.
  - petercooper 17y ago
    This is something that's bugging me about the iPad. Since the screen is 1024x768 (and TFTs are typically manufactured in portrait), I wonder if the pixels are oriented vertically rather than horizontally when you're in portrait mode. If so, the font rendering for books could be horrible compared to if you had it in landscape. Anyone got any ideas/insight on this?
    - pyre 17y ago
      Would it be possible in the future to supplement our existing font formats to have two versions, one for subpixels one way, and one for the other (so that the OS could transparently switch between which version to use)? Or am I misunderstanding how subpixel fonts work?
      - henrikschroder 17y ago
        That depends on if it's a bitmap font or not. If it is bitmap, then it's already subpixel rendered, and you would need two different bitmaps depending on orientation. If it's truetype or similar, you would need a font renderer that was capable of subpixel rendering, and it would then have to render it differently depending on orientation. However, subpixel rendering works because you effectively triple the horizontal resolution. If you flip your screen, you now have normal horizontal resolution, but triple the vertical resolution, which is less useful for rendering fonts, and it would of course also not look the same as the horizontally subpixel-rendered font. So for devices like that, it's probably best to simply not do it and get a dense enough display that you won't need it. Also, does anyone know if subpixel rendering works on OLED screens?
chaosmachine 17y ago
That second font was created by Ken Perlin, of Perlin Noise fame. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1105632 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1105632
JoeAltmaier 17y ago
Subpixel Abe Lincoln http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/fcs_mosaic/ http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/fcs_mosaic/
- jrockway 17y ago
  Why blur the serial number on the money? Is someone really going to find the bill, notice it has cocaine on it, and blame the author of the blog post?
10ren 17y ago
Work amazingly well. Is there a barrier to this being available as an ordinary font? > In contrast, I’ve noticed that Microsoft’s smallest screen fonts are unreadable, whereas their smallest readable screen fonts are way bigger than necessary. “ Interesting, given ClearType (an example in "Microsoft’s Creative Destruction" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1100377 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1100377): "It worked by using the color dots of liquid crystal displays to make type much more readable on the screen"

55 points by bensummers 17y ago

Hates_ 17y ago

I've yet to find a download link for the first font "The Bee’s Knees".

_delirium 17y ago
The article says: "At the time of writing, neither font is available for download".
bensummers 17y ago
The original and best: http://minifonts.com/mini7.html http://minifonts.com/mini7.html But not as small, of course.
- JayNeely 17y ago
  I find Silkscreen to be the tiny-font of choice. And it's free: http://kottke.org/plus/type/silkscreen/ http://kottke.org/plus/type/silkscreen/

arnorhs 17y ago

How well, if at all, do these fonts scale upwards?

henrikschroder 17y ago
Not at all of course, they're bitmap fonts that rely on subpixel rendering.
- henrikschroder 17y ago
  Basically: This font is created such that it looks good when subpixel-rendered at a size of 3px. If you wanted text larger than 3px, you would not ever want to use this font, you would use something else that can either be regularly rendered at your chosen size, or subpixel-rendered at your chosen size.
romland 17y ago
It's a bitmap font, so it scales as any pixels would but far from well when it comes to readability. If you look at the 1600% up-scale you get a good idea what I am talking about. I remember making these types of fonts myself back in the Amiga days just to fit it on bootsector(s) (memory fails me here, was it one or two?). The difference then was that sub pixel rendering was not an option, and fixed width fonts at this size always looked bad (i vs m), so you'd have to be careful how you wrote things. :-) Without having ever experimented with subpixel rendering I am intrigued by the fact that « is made a whole lot more "blue" than » -- spontaneously one would think it would simply be a matter of mirroring the glyphs (obviously not) :)
- ComputerGuru 17y ago
  The subpixels are RGB in that order. So the heavier "image concentration" on the right side means there'd be more blue.
- thristian 17y ago
  If you want to experiment with subpixel rendering, and you have a reasonably modern Firefox, I made a subpixel-rendering toy a while ago: http://zork.net/~st/Toys/subpixel-sketch.html http://zork.net/~st/Toys/subpixel-sketch.html If you don't have a modern Firefox, there's a screenshot here: http://zork.net/~st/Toys/subpixel-sketch.png http://zork.net/~st/Toys/subpixel-sketch.png
  - PebblesRox 17y ago
    That's neat, but I wish I could click and drag to change multiple pixels at once, instead of clicking and clicking and clicking.
goodside 17y ago
This well: http://grab.by/2eT3 http://grab.by/2eT3 That's from the Mac OS X zoom function. Interestingly, it's far more readable than the zoomed-in graphic on their page.

qjz 17y ago

At the other (and more preferable) end of the solution: What current technology offers the most pixels per square inch? How far away are we from a 1080p PDA/smartphone screen?

shalmanese 17y ago
LCD Projectors fit 1080p in ~0.75" diagonal for roughly 3000 pixels per square inch. That seems to be roughly the limit of our technology.
- Retric 17y ago
  As a side note 4x 1080p projectors fit with that assumption. The 4K resolution of the new panel, which measures 1.64-inches diagonally, translates to 8.85 megapixels and is four times the resolution of full HD http://www.gizmag.com/epson-2160p-lcd-projector-panel/13333/ http://www.gizmag.com/epson-2160p-lcd-projector-panel/13333/

Mark_B 17y ago

If nothing else, be sure to check out the Ken Perlin's homepage (he's the guy behind the second font). http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/ http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/

petercooper 17y ago

If we could render Hacker News with this system, think of how many more stories we could get on the front page. I vote Aye.

petercooper 17y ago

BTW, if you want to quickly see how this text looks on an iPhone, etc, I made a shortlink direct to the demo image so it's easier to type on there.. http://bit.ly/tinytext http://bit.ly/tinytext

ZeroGravitas 17y ago
Note that as it relies on subpixels it'll only work as intended in one orientation on iPhone.
- petercooper 17y ago
  This is something that's bugging me about the iPad. Since the screen is 1024x768 (and TFTs are typically manufactured in portrait), I wonder if the pixels are oriented vertically rather than horizontally when you're in portrait mode. If so, the font rendering for books could be horrible compared to if you had it in landscape. Anyone got any ideas/insight on this?
  - pyre 17y ago
    Would it be possible in the future to supplement our existing font formats to have two versions, one for subpixels one way, and one for the other (so that the OS could transparently switch between which version to use)? Or am I misunderstanding how subpixel fonts work?
    - henrikschroder 17y ago
      That depends on if it's a bitmap font or not. If it is bitmap, then it's already subpixel rendered, and you would need two different bitmaps depending on orientation. If it's truetype or similar, you would need a font renderer that was capable of subpixel rendering, and it would then have to render it differently depending on orientation. However, subpixel rendering works because you effectively triple the horizontal resolution. If you flip your screen, you now have normal horizontal resolution, but triple the vertical resolution, which is less useful for rendering fonts, and it would of course also not look the same as the horizontally subpixel-rendered font. So for devices like that, it's probably best to simply not do it and get a dense enough display that you won't need it. Also, does anyone know if subpixel rendering works on OLED screens?

chaosmachine 17y ago

That second font was created by Ken Perlin, of Perlin Noise fame. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1105632 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1105632

JoeAltmaier 17y ago

Subpixel Abe Lincoln http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/fcs_mosaic/ http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/fcs_mosaic/

jrockway 17y ago
Why blur the serial number on the money? Is someone really going to find the bill, notice it has cocaine on it, and blame the author of the blog post?

10ren 17y ago

Work amazingly well. Is there a barrier to this being available as an ordinary font? > In contrast, I’ve noticed that Microsoft’s smallest screen fonts are unreadable, whereas their smallest readable screen fonts are way bigger than necessary. “ Interesting, given ClearType (an example in "Microsoft’s Creative Destruction" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1100377 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1100377): "It worked by using the color dots of liquid crystal displays to make type much more readable on the screen"