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Optician Sans – A free font based on the historical eye charts
- Palomides 8y ago>"LICENSING Feel free to use this typeface on your website, print, startup or organisation. But don’t be a jerk and distribute or sell the typeface as if it was your own. A link back to this site from your website would be really much appreciated! And let us know if you use this typeface for a project you think we should know about." this is not a license, people, please just stick the CC license of your choice on it or something.
- mcbits 8y agoIt's a license, just not a very tightly worded one. "I was not being a jerk AND distributing ..." But the intent is clear enough.
- rickycook 8y agoand at least when it comes to contracts, ambiguity goes in favour of the party that didn’t write it afaik? so it’s a VERY permissible license if that holds
- gpvos 8y agoYes, as long as you're not a jerk while you do it, you're fine. I'm curious how a judge will determine whether or not you are one.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> this is not a license Yes, it is: express permission from the rights holder to do something covered by their exclusive rights is a license. The wording is casual, but that doesn't make it not a license.
- csours 8y agoIt's not a license recognized my companies licensing software, so it's not a license to me.
- Angostura 8y agoIt looks like your software isn't very good at recognising licenses.
- AckSyn 8y agoit looks like bureaucratic bs gets in the way as usual
- ada1981 8y agoIn addition, it looks like his cortex isn’t very good at parsing reality from the output of a piece of software.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dylan604 8y agoWhy is this not in the spirit of HN? It’s not condescending, but yet still delivers that ‘je ne sais quoi‘[0] level of comment. [0] I had to duck it to get the correct spelling
- dang 8y agoUncivil comments will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- dragonwriter 8y agoThat's a defect of your software (and, perhaps more, your company's decision to use software as a source of truth on what is a license, rather than a tool for tracking licenses that deals with real-world licensing), not the license.
- bhhaskin 8y agoI agree, the license is a nonstarter. Might be okay for a personal project, but would avoid for anything else.
- mort96 8y agoWow, I'm afraid of what "let us know if you use this typeface for a project you think we should know about." means if interpreted as legalese.
- fermienrico 8y agoAlso, why even mention startups? Startup is such a buzzword that everyone wants to cash in on. They could have just simply said “Please feel free to use for personal or commercial use. For full license details see this link: license.txt”
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- btown 8y agoIn this case, though, it's likely the creators would be more than receptive to giving you a legitimate CC-BY license if you ask. They're likely just not familiar with the CC-BY details. Rather than shaming their work for it, let's enjoy it with the understanding that there are humans in the loop with the flexibility to offer bespoke licensing, and licensing will be sorted out if it needs to be.
- Palomides 8y agomy comment was mostly intended for HN readers, who may also be likely to release small projects of their own in the future; I strongly feel anyone making works subject to copyright needs a basic understanding of licensing. Reading up on this stuff only takes a few hours, and a work released under a standard license makes things nice for both the creator and the user.
- ghaff 8y agoPeople are either not going to care because they don’t really care what license, open source or otherwise, it’s under. Or they’ll simply drop it like a hot potato because it’s got a weird license. To a first or second degree no one will contact them to see if it’s ok for some specific application.
- fermienrico 8y agoThis is not excusable when you're putting out the work and claiming it to be free to use and later some chap uses it, they get sued because the wording was vague. There is some level of professionalism and ethics that is required to avoid nasty situations. Criticism of their wording, lack of license and the need for adopting existing licenses (don't roll your own license if possible) is valid. "Rather than shaming their work for it,.." - No one is shaming their work. We are talking about the licensing terms. I love the font concept and I think its brilliant.
- mcbits 8y agoThe creators are obviously not interested in suing some chap for using the font unless he claims it's his own font. And even then, the poorly worded license would make suing harder, not easier. People should be able to share their work under common-sense terms without being sucked into Kafka's swirling cesspool of legalese and bureaucracy. The demonic inhabitants of that dimension can just... choose not to use it.
- gmiller123456 8y agoIt certainly does count as a license, just very ambiguous which could scare off some people who would use it. So, yes, it would still be a lot better to actually specify one of the more commonly used licenses.
- mortenjorck 8y agoThere is a general consensus in the open-source type community around the SIL Open Font License: https://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=OFL https://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id... It’s what most of the fonts on Google Fonts, including such widely-used families as Adobe’s Source Sans Pro and Google’s own Roboto family, are licensed under, and something I imagine the creators of Optician Sans would be comfortable with.
- Digital-Citizen 8y agoIt's a nonfree license (which alone is sufficient to make me look elsewhere for functional replacements); the license disallows commercial redistribution and contains no language that permits modification. This license is also sufficiently unclear that I'm not sure what rights exist for licensees. With licenses that have been reviewed (such as the reviews on https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#Fonts https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#Fonts ) I can find amenable free software licenses.
- simens 8y agoYou're totally right. It's unclear. And that's way I've decided to release this under the SIL Open Font Licence instead. Website is updated.
- Palomides 8y agothanks! no hard feelings, I really like the font.
- Someone 8y agoSome background on the history of eye charts: https://ilovetypography.com/2015/07/12/what-are-optotypes-eye-charts-fonts/ https://ilovetypography.com/2015/07/12/what-are-optotypes-ey... (Found via http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/snellen-optotype-font/ http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/snellen-optotype-font/, when searching for a Snellen font)
- JdeBP 8y agoI wouldn't enjoy reading anything using the lowercase letters in M. Krzywinski's fonts. (-: I see that xe went back to the original "e" shape in July 2017.
- JdeBP 8y agoI enjoyed the mistake in the Alphabet. (-: That licence almost certainly does not count as "free".
- ianwalter 8y agoI have no problem with the license. It's free to me!
- sdinsn 8y agoIf you wanted to use the font in a commercial work, your legal team would absolutely not approve. There are free font licenses that say exactly what they want, but in more specific legal speak that guarantees protection.
- theandrewbailey 8y agoIt's free as in beer.
- JdeBP 8y agoThe second word of the licence is definitely "free" as in freedom. Font copyright and font licensing is a tricky thing. (There's an argument that some people make, for example, that bitmap fonts such as the 5x5 original Snellen glyphs, cannot be copyrighted.) The SIL Open Font Licence might have been a better choice.
- simens 8y agoYou're absolutely right. SIL Open Font Licence is a better choice and I've changed the licensing to that now.
- simens 8y agoHaha, typo is fixed! And to clarify licensing, I've updated it to SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE.
- 8y ago
- drannex 8y agoFinally... I can cheat on my eye exams and get a good grade Edit: This font is pretty great imo
- nivenhuh 8y agoIs it just me, or is the gaussian blur effect on the website a bit excessive / headache inducing?
- EamonnMR 8y agoSort of a stroke simulator effect. I agree that it's quite unpleasant, but it's also the only reason I shared the link to the rest of my company so I suppose it's done it's job and gotten us talking.
- vortico 8y agoDoesn't do it for me, maybe you need an eye exam!
- samirm 8y agodidn't even see it because of noscript lol
- Angostura 8y agoCover your right eye. Do you still have the problem? Now try the left.
- purplezooey 8y agoWish they had a monospace version. Doesn't work well as a terminator font, I tried. heh.
- simens 8y agoGreat idea! Maybe We'll make that too.
- deathanatos 8y agoWhy are the last 3 letters in the alphabet ("Y X Z") out of order?
- daveFNbuck 8y agoIt seems to be a mistake. The image files are named as being characters 25 and 24 correctly.
- rbanffy 8y agoLooks like a great alternative to Microgramma and its cousins.
- cgarvis 8y agoOdd that the site does not use the font they are proclaiming is better.
- dmix 8y agoyes they are... the logo of "OPTICIAN SANS" on the main section at the top is using it. https://imgur.com/a/hofldwN https://imgur.com/a/hofldwN
- stupidbird 8y agoIt's better for eye charts, not running copy on websites.
- simens 8y agoAll headings are set in Optician Sans.
- gregschlom 8y agoI don't understand why anyone would want that. I'd imagine that the eye charts use characters that are intentionally close to each other, in order to better measure visual acuity. Just look at how similar the C and the O are, for example. This font seems like it would make text harder to read, not easier.
- fermienrico 8y agoTypography is has subjective aspects such as evoking the feeling of a particular aspect of design. Just as old western fonts, Art Deco type, and Baskerville; Optician Sans is a brilliant take on typography. A large number of people have glasses and at one point or another, we’ve carefully studied and read the letters on the eye charts, yet it’s so obscure and not something people think about. As far as the application is concerned, it can be used for perhaps for a optical company branding? The recognition factor is a huge asset in branding. Legibility argument falls apart - otherwise we wouldn't have Zapfino and Bodoni. In certain situations, legibility takes a backseat over stylistic intentions. In other cases, yes you're right - I wouldn't want my blood test results to be misread. Another area where fonts can have devastating effects is say for example lack of a slashed 0 in nuclear missile launch codes. But we are in good hands with respect to typography and design for serious things - the Martin Baker EJECT seat handles in fighter jets don't use comic sans and they have bright yellow stripes for super fast visual recognition. :-)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- stupidbird 8y agoThe biggest use would likely be to recreate eye charts
- cthulhujr 8y agoYep, this can be seen in the embedded video around the 13 second mark.
- dwighttk 8y agoYeah, but it is just all E's!
- all2 8y agoI invite you to do a pull request here: https://github.com/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee https://github.com/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee/eeeeeeee... with only the E characters of the font. It would be a welcome addition.
- tejtm 8y agoalas it ees archived
- Waterluvian 8y agoI think it's interesting that "sans" seems more important to indicate something is a font, than indicate it has no serifs.
- stupidbird 8y agoIt's pretty common to distinguish your font from others with a description in the name, be it sans/serif/slab/mono/condensed/extended, etc — it does communicate "this is a font" clearly but it's also useful when you're in an application just looking at a text list of font names.
- a_e_k 8y agoYep, kind of a font namespacing, e.g. Sans::SourcePro vs. Serif::SourcePro.
- JackFr 8y agoLike US soccer teams with "United" in their names.
- dwighttk 8y agoor FC (and I'm an FC Dallas fan)
- vanderZwan 8y agoThis is actually a Sans font though, the E with serifs is a different font, an older one called Snellen. (they could make a Serif variant based on Snellen instead of on Sloan)
- nofunsir 8y agoI like it. It would have been nice to include at least the full set of ascii char glyphs. It seems to be missing a few basic chars such as tilde, gt and lt.[1] [1] https://i.imgur.com/di6oHxV.png https://i.imgur.com/di6oHxV.png
- simens 8y agoYou're right, it's missing some basic characters. Thinking about releasing it open source to see if anything would like to contribute.
- amelius 8y agoCurious if somebody compressed all existing font designs into a small latent space, using vector representation. It seems to me that fonts are quite similar (or can be clustered that way) with a few hard choices on shapes of characters like "a", "G", and weight, slant.
- CharlesW 8y agoYou may be interested in "computational typography"[1], "mathematical typograhy"[2], and "variable fonts"[3]. [1] http://printingcode.runemadsen.com/lecture-typography/ http://printingcode.runemadsen.com/lecture-typography/ [2] PDF: http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~millerpd/docs/501_Winter08/Knuth79.pdf http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~millerpd/docs/501_Winter08/Kn... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_fonts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_fonts
- jcl 8y agoYou might enjoy "Learning a Manifold of Fonts" from SIGGRAPH 2014. Here's a point in the middle of the paper's presentation that demos the navigation within the learned space: https://youtu.be/oHwuJJU760k?t=753 https://youtu.be/oHwuJJU760k?t=753
- qwerty456127 8y agoLooks beautiful, I'm glad I've found this. Nevertheless I've been actually click-baited by the post title thinking it's a font designed for reading efficiency based on eye movement analysis. What are some fonts actually made to help you read faster, easier and comprehend more?
- riffraff 8y agothere are fonts designed for dyslexia, they look weird but are actually fairly readable. https://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/typeface/ https://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/typeface/ https://www.opendyslexic.org/ https://www.opendyslexic.org/
- ghaff 8y agoi suppose the amount of science is open to debate but there are centuries of practice behind serif body fonts although the details depend a lot on the reproductive medium and other specifics.
- cedex12 8y agoThis one appeared on hn some time ago: https://sansforgetica.rmit/ https://sansforgetica.rmit/
- bytematic 8y agoI use "Hack" in my editor, one of the only fonts that puts me at ease when programming. Other than that, I'm always happy to see the system font stack used on webpages.
- xena 8y agoThe G looks exactly like the Google logo.
- simens 8y agoGeometric G = Google. Basically. You can always use the alternative G glyph included in the font!
- icameron 8y agoOne thing I learned from this link is the traditional eye exam charts are from a set of only 10 characters. Interesting, good to know.
- banku_brougham 8y agoAfter the fourth or fifth tine I’m now realizing that great fonts are the most work-life enhancing thing I’ve interacted with on Hacker News.
- tambourine_man 8y agoA typography site that breaks it's main headline on mobile is a bit too much carelessness in my book. https://imgur.com/5qcmUg1 https://imgur.com/5qcmUg1
- simens 8y agoWoops! Fixed.