16 ms·

Helvetica Now Variable

320 points by bpierre 5y ago

boulos 5y ago
If you're interested in variable fonts, the recent SF Design Week talk [1] from the folks at Google was pretty accessible! Maybe if enough folks ping them they'd be willing to put up a recording. [1] https://sfdesignweek.org/events/typography-in-the-variable-age/ https://sfdesignweek.org/events/typography-in-the-variable-a...
- bigtasty 5y ago
  Looks like replays and on-demand are available for $15 [1]. What were your favorite presentations from SF Design Week? I did not attend but I would purchase on-demand for $15 if there were a few interesting talks. [1] https://www.boomset.com/apps/eventpage/113863 https://www.boomset.com/apps/eventpage/113863
  - boulos 5y ago
    I didn't realize it's all still accessible! The event list [1] includes abstracts. For me, personally, I was more interested in the conversations (e.g., [2]) than the various software companies talking about design. I'd say if you're interested, treat it as a $15 "watch a few talks instead of going to a movie". [1] https://sfdesignweek.org/category/?s&events https://sfdesignweek.org/category/?s&events [2] https://sfdesignweek.org/events/cocktails-with-top-designers-and-architects-series-the-modernists/ https://sfdesignweek.org/events/cocktails-with-top-designers...
1-6 5y ago
That was a very cool website. I didn't know that fonts alone could be used to advertise itself.
legrande 5y ago
I like new spins on old classics. Always liked Hellvetica: https://allbestfonts.com/hellvetica/ https://allbestfonts.com/hellvetica/
- Sharlin 5y ago
  It would be even funnier if there were just slight keming irregularities, just enough to infuriate those who care about such things (oblicatory xkcd: [1]) [1] https://xkcd.com/1015/ https://xkcd.com/1015/
  - da_chicken 5y ago
    /r/keming is still the best named subreddit on the whole site.
  - arendtio 5y ago
    Just yesterday, I hat a Renault Koleos in front of me and was wondering why the name looked so weird and I have the feeling that the kerning is just slightly off (e.g. the first O is too close to the K): https://www.netcarshow.com/Renault-Koleos-2020-1600-0b.jpg https://www.netcarshow.com/Renault-Koleos-2020-1600-0b.jpg
1-6 5y ago
This is a nightmare for those who are indecisive.
klaussilveira 5y ago
Helvetica just gives me warm feelings. For the other type freaks lost around here: https://www.hustwit.com/helvetica/ https://www.hustwit.com/helvetica/
- vmladenov 5y ago
  The fact that it’s nearly 70 years old and is still an influential “modern” font is amazing to me. It just feels right.
  - m0rti 5y ago
    I feel the same for Futura, which apparently was created in 1927. The longevity is just crazy. “Hip” brands and designers still use it today just like Helvetica. And I can easily see these fonts still being used in the far future. I wonder if there are any other sans serif typefaces like these.
flowerlad 5y ago
Fantastic font, now infinitely malleable! Unfortunately it is expensive, and you can't just buy it and use it, you have to renew the license annually. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now-variable?tab=licensing https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now-variable?tab... And my use case isn't even covered: include in a web application that will be downloaded and installed by customers. My current choice is OpenSans https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans
- Noxmiles 5y ago
  How does this work? Normally I download and install TTF files and install them on my computer. How are licensed fonts work? Is there some kind of proprietary installation?
  - ctvo 5y ago
    If you violate their agreement, and they find it, they sue you.
  - sodality2 5y ago
    You probably can't use it for any commercial purpose. Locally they can't really do much about it.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Copyright licensing is entirely a legal construct. Some people attempt to make DRM to enforce it, but it's certainly not a requirement. For example, if you visit my webpage, your computer will download the copyrighted text from it and save it in your cache.
  - _greim_ 5y ago
    If you (the end user) download and install a font on your machine, or buy an OS with it pre-installed, then you (the end user) are paying the licensing for it. If you (the website operator) link to a font from your CSS file so end users' browsers will download and render text with it, then you (the website operator) are paying the licensing fees.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
perardi 5y ago
Well by gosh, I am old enough to remember Adobe Multiple Masters… https://blog.typekit.com/2014/07/30/the-adobe-originals-silver-anniversary-story-how-the-originals-endured-in-an-ever-changing-industry/ https://blog.typekit.com/2014/07/30/the-adobe-originals-silv... …a technology which went absolutely nowhere. Makes me glad to see Helvetica is now available as variable, as well as a non-trivial number of open-source fonts. https://fonts.google.com/?vfonly=true&sort=popularity https://fonts.google.com/?vfonly=true&sort=popularity (Still waiting for Roboto, though. Slab and mono are there, the main sans isn’t yet, which is too bad.)
- hyper_dynamics 5y ago
  I bought a license for Myriad Pro MM for 400 Deutsche Mark before it was cool :D
seumars 5y ago
Helvetica Now is such a departure from what makes the typeface a classic that I think Monotype kept Helvetica in the name mostly for marketing purposes. To me CommercialType’s Neue Haas Grotesk is the absolute best digitalization of Miedingers original drawings.
- crazygringo 5y ago
  Can you elaborate? I'm comparing the two e.g. on MyFonts: https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/neue-haas-grotesk/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/neue-haas-grotesk/ Or specifically for the medium text: https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now/text-medium/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now/text-medium/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/neue-haas-grotesk/pro-text-65-medium/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/neue-haas-grotesk/pro... Aside from the fact that they're scaled slightly differently, nothing whatsoever jumps out to me as noticeably different, in any weight, except that Neue Haas Grotesk has descenders that seem unnaturally short, but I can't tell if that might be a rendering box clipping issue. What makes Helvetica Now "such a departure" and the name Helvetica just "marketing"? Whatever difference there is seems extremely subtle to my eyes...
  - ardit33 5y ago
    They are very different fonts. I have used them both in apps, and they both have their quirks. I excepted Helvetica Now to be slightly better/modernized version of traditional helvetica, but it is not. It feels different (not better). Nue Hass Grotesk has its own issues. It has a very industrial feel, and make it great for single line of text as a display font. It fails if your text is over 2-3 lines (eg. news headlines). I think Bloomberg news uses it successfully, as it matches its 'industrial/business' feel, but it is not a 'warm' font. The lesson I learned: The perfect font doesn't exist. They all have flaws.
    - crazygringo 5y ago
      Again, just... not seeing it? Can you point to any actual visual difference, something objectively measurable, as opposed to subjectively "different" or "better"? I'm feeling like I'm in crazytown, you're saying they're "very different" and the letterforms just look... virtually identical to me. Totally same personality and all. I'd wonder if I needed higher resolution, but you're talking about using them in apps, so that's definitely not the case.
todd3834 5y ago
Am I crazy for expecting fonts to be free? There are so many good options that I can use without paying a license fee. I can't imagine liking the tiny differences in a font so much that I would get myself locked into a yearly licensing fee.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  I wouldn't pay an expensive yearly fee for a font, but as software developers like to get paid, graphic designers do as well. Of course you have a lot of graphic designers who do that as a hobby or don't want money and share it freely, but graphic design is a bit different than open source code because the creator doesn't get as much benefits from sharing the work.
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  Yes, you are crazy and perhaps even entitled to think that you deserve the fruit of all font creator’s labour for nothing.
  - netr0ute 5y ago
    Google Fonts disagrees.
    - rubyist5eva 5y ago
      Show me where I can get Pragmata Pro on Google Fonts.
- com2kid 5y ago
  > Am I crazy for expecting fonts to be free? There are so many good options that I can use without paying a license fee. I can't imagine liking the tiny differences in a font so much that I would get myself locked into a yearly licensing fee. Having worked at Microsoft for years, I also got a chance to work directly with Monotype on custom fonts for a project's specific needs (wearable, tiny screen, specific DPI). Monotype is amazing to work with. And given the amount of work they did, and what we got out of it, the price was absurdly reasonable. For your blog? Use a free font. But if you need a custom font, you really do need a custom font, and Monotype is #1 in the industry for a good reason.
oliwarner 5y ago
Only a psychopath puts font altering controls after the text it alters. Nearly unusable on mobile in paragraph mode because it's moving all over the place. Nice font but, as ever, shame about the licensing.
DataCrayon 5y ago
Nice! However, I prefer IBM Plex[1], and it has the advantage of being an open-source project! I have recently re-designed my CV (15 pages down to 2) and used IBM Plex for all of it... happy so far. [1] https://github.com/IBM/plex https://github.com/IBM/plex
Ericson2314 5y ago
I hope Knuth is smiling that Metafont-style procedural fonts are winning in the end after decades of haters :D.
- lerie 5y ago
  knuth.
- threepio 5y ago
  Variable fonts aren't "Metafont-style procedural fonts"
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Tell me more?
jstx1 5y ago
Do you genuinely notice differences between fonts? I have a general sense of monospaced vs proportional and serif vs sans-serif. Past that it's mostly all the same to me and I'm kind of impressed that people pay so much attention to the tiny details (and maybe questioning whether they really do or whether fonts are kind of like wine tasting).
- kroltan 5y ago
  I don't think "you" as in "the general user base" notices the differences between fonts, but there certainly is some innate sense of fitness to a design. Similar to how people can tell something is cohesive or jankily designed, even if they can't pinpoint what causes the jank. Personally, I can't recognize specific fonts in the wild (especially Helvetica and its infinite lookalikes), but can certainly feel when a site uses an inappropriate font (usually too thin, but also things like using a UI font for longer-form text), to the extent I have a few userscripts that change some popular site's fonts to something more appropriate in my optinion.
  - _fat_santa 5y ago
    I just released an update to one of my apps that adds a typography library. Like you said font's are a very subtle thing and as I was converting my app I didn't notice that much. But after pushing the update and seeing the two versions (before and after the upgrade) side by side you see that proper typography can help make an app or a website look that much more "professional". The app before didn't look bad, but it had a sheen of "some guy built this in his basement". Now when I look at the app I get a "ok well a cash strapped startup built this"
- Pentamerous 5y ago
  They do. As fast as I can look at a picture of a cat or a dog and tell you which of those animals it is, when my husband sees a font he immediatly knows which font it is. I find it fascinating. He is also my go to person when I choose fonts because he always give critiques I would never think of.
  - 5y ago
compi 5y ago
Web fonts are so weird, to display this site I had to download the advertised font as a .WOFF file to my computer. I now have a fully featured copy of what they are selling. I know they are actually selling the license to use it but still it seems weird that any site that licenses and uses this will also be mass distributing it to peoples machines.
- lights0123 5y ago
  It's the same concept as Windows. You can (as in physically, not as in "it's allowed") download and use it without a license, and no one will care if it's just you personally, but expect lawyers if you're a big company.
rebuilder 5y ago
First impression: wow, they aced the execution on this advertising. Just the right level of cheeky. 2nd impression: Did they intentionally put the white monotype logo on a mainly white animated header so it kind of disfigures the font shown therein? Surely that can’t be a mistake!
huashu 5y ago
really amazing work by the monotype team. As always, font licensing is a very tricky business, so I understand everyone's frustration here. If any of you are looking for an open-sourced sans serifs for your sass and other projects, I covered a couple in my newsletter. I go over how to use them with examples and use cases. some are variable: https://fonts.substack.com/p/dosis https://fonts.substack.com/p/dosis https://fonts.substack.com/p/fow-no4-libre-franklin-a-versatile https://fonts.substack.com/p/fow-no4-libre-franklin-a-versat...
_greim_ 5y ago
Dragging the "optical size" slider to a lower value, I'm horrified to see that the cutoff on the lowercase 'e' is no longer parallel to the direction of the text. This was always my go-to way of differentiating Helvetica from look alikes. Now I have to find a new technique :(
amvp 5y ago
The extreme values for "Optical Size" really alter the character of the font for me. Changing the angle of the lower arc of the "e" for example really alter how the font feels, and it's unrecognisable to me as Helvetica: https://imgur.com/a/vtQZc9I https://imgur.com/a/vtQZc9I
- mgdlbp 5y ago
  Huh, I'd assumed that ink traps would somehow be absent from fonts intended for screen use. Thinking about it now, though, it does make sense that (at least on typical computers) it's the same font file used on-screen as sent to the printer, and at small sizes on-screen they're probably hidden by hinting anyway. A cursory search also reveals that varying paper and ink conditions made for an age-old problem of achieving consistent weight. And indeed, the distinctive spur of the 'R' all but disappears at low optical size. Something else I never noticed: the spur of the 'a' changes from vertical to horizontal at high weights in many grotesques.
dhosek 5y ago
It's still disconcerting to me to see that monotype.com after the Helvetica headline. Monotype and Linotype were fierce rivals since their inception in the late 19th century. The cases where a typeface was offered for both Monotype and Linotype hot metal were rare (Times New Roman and Sabon being the most notable cases). It was only in the post-digital era that we saw consolidation where Agfa (at that time wholly owned by Bayer, the aspirin people) bought the company¹ and merged it with their prepress division, Agfa Compugraphic. It was later sold to a private equity firm who 7 years later bought Linotype, at that time owned by German printing company Heidelberg. They've continued their acquisitions since then purchasing FontShop, the largest indie vendor of typefaces, ITC which was founded as a platform-independent supplier of typeface designs and, most recently URW, a newer entry in the type world but largely influential for high-quality designs (alongside some copied designs) and for the creation of Ikarus which was the first outline-based type description system, predating even Metafont.² 1. The late 20th century Monotype was the descendant of the English spin-off of the American parent company. Lanston Monotype did not survive the transition from hot metal typesetting and was never the significant producer of new designs that English Monotype was. Last I heard, the remains of American Monotype (aka Lanston Monotype) were held by a Canadian printer, although that was 20 years ago and he was not a young man so I don't know now). 2. I had previously thought that Metafont was the first outline-based type design system, not realizing Ikarus's priority until recently.
- TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
  Ah, so I wasn't imagining it. I know little about font history, but I know that Arial is a Monotype thing, and Arial is a metrically-compatible Helvetica look-alike, so it seemed strange that Helvetica would be under the same brand.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    I remember talking to a Monotype executive in the wake of the Microsoft deal that gave us Arial, Book Antiqua, etc. He was embarrassed about having done it, but he said that the deal saved the company from failure. Out of the whole set, Century Gothic is the most interesting face. They reproportioned the Twentieth Century typeface (itself a clone of Futura) to match the metrics of Avant Garde and ended up with something that is neither of its predecessors. I suspect that the Microsoft Typography group also was created around as a result of shame around the MS-Monotype deal, although I don't know for certain and I've lost touch with the people that I used to know from Microsoft Typography.
jressey 5y ago
"Helvetica® Now Variable builds on the groundbreaking work of 2019’s Helvetica Now release." I am so far out of touch that I cannot believe this is relevant to anyone outside of designers who build their career on constantly changing to the newest thing?
_huayra_ 5y ago
Can someone explain why pro fonts are so damn expensive? There are a bazillion free fonts which are great for most uses, but for a font like this where it's not as if the font was custom calligraphy (e.g. for a video game or something) and is just a "good normal font", what exactly goes on to make this font and others like it worth the money? I genuinely don't know if there are special features of this font that are beyond what you can get from very similar free fonts or if it's just some brand recognition thing.
- npteljes 5y ago
  Brand is definitely a strong driver. The number of styles, and the number of glyphs is also an aspect. Being worth the money is compared not just the font itself, but to what you expect in return. If you're thinking about how popular your mobile OS got, it could make sense to design a distinct font for it.
flixic 5y ago
Really great font. I loved Helvetica, Helvetica Now was a great extension, but was just so many files, and this is a great fix to the problem. I would have liked slant to be yet another variable instead of just two variations, but this is still nice. And yet, I just can't imagine ever using this in actual design. Licensing makes it ridiculous to recommend to almost all clients, and there are great, much more affordable alternatives, Inter being completely free.
malkia 5y ago
So what happened to the hacker news page and the new font (is it something wrong with my browser, but things look a bit different last few days)
- systoll 5y ago
  The only changes in the CSS this year are around word-wrapping. If it looks different, something’s changed on your machine
hamburgerwah 5y ago
Part of the "never own anything" "infinite rent seeking" license mindset. They are dirtbags. Pass.
lerie 5y ago
it appears someone should make it free. i bet someone beats me to it.
jijji 5y ago
people pay for fonts? I just figured everyone downloaded them off of dafont.com and was done with it...

320 points by bpierre 5y ago

If you're interested in variable fonts, the recent SF Design Week talk [1] from the folks at Google was pretty accessible! Maybe if enough folks ping them they'd be willing to put up a recording. [1] https://sfdesignweek.org/events/typography-in-the-variable-age/ https://sfdesignweek.org/events/typography-in-the-variable-a...

bigtasty 5y ago
Looks like replays and on-demand are available for $15 [1]. What were your favorite presentations from SF Design Week? I did not attend but I would purchase on-demand for $15 if there were a few interesting talks. [1] https://www.boomset.com/apps/eventpage/113863 https://www.boomset.com/apps/eventpage/113863
- boulos 5y ago
  I didn't realize it's all still accessible! The event list [1] includes abstracts. For me, personally, I was more interested in the conversations (e.g., [2]) than the various software companies talking about design. I'd say if you're interested, treat it as a $15 "watch a few talks instead of going to a movie". [1] https://sfdesignweek.org/category/?s&events https://sfdesignweek.org/category/?s&events [2] https://sfdesignweek.org/events/cocktails-with-top-designers-and-architects-series-the-modernists/ https://sfdesignweek.org/events/cocktails-with-top-designers...

1-6 5y ago

That was a very cool website. I didn't know that fonts alone could be used to advertise itself.

legrande 5y ago

I like new spins on old classics. Always liked Hellvetica: https://allbestfonts.com/hellvetica/ https://allbestfonts.com/hellvetica/

Sharlin 5y ago
It would be even funnier if there were just slight keming irregularities, just enough to infuriate those who care about such things (oblicatory xkcd: [1]) [1] https://xkcd.com/1015/ https://xkcd.com/1015/
- da_chicken 5y ago
  /r/keming is still the best named subreddit on the whole site.
- arendtio 5y ago
  Just yesterday, I hat a Renault Koleos in front of me and was wondering why the name looked so weird and I have the feeling that the kerning is just slightly off (e.g. the first O is too close to the K): https://www.netcarshow.com/Renault-Koleos-2020-1600-0b.jpg https://www.netcarshow.com/Renault-Koleos-2020-1600-0b.jpg

1-6 5y ago

This is a nightmare for those who are indecisive.

klaussilveira 5y ago

Helvetica just gives me warm feelings. For the other type freaks lost around here: https://www.hustwit.com/helvetica/ https://www.hustwit.com/helvetica/

vmladenov 5y ago
The fact that it’s nearly 70 years old and is still an influential “modern” font is amazing to me. It just feels right.
- m0rti 5y ago
  I feel the same for Futura, which apparently was created in 1927. The longevity is just crazy. “Hip” brands and designers still use it today just like Helvetica. And I can easily see these fonts still being used in the far future. I wonder if there are any other sans serif typefaces like these.

flowerlad 5y ago

Fantastic font, now infinitely malleable! Unfortunately it is expensive, and you can't just buy it and use it, you have to renew the license annually. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now-variable?tab=licensing https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now-variable?tab... And my use case isn't even covered: include in a web application that will be downloaded and installed by customers. My current choice is OpenSans https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans

Noxmiles 5y ago
How does this work? Normally I download and install TTF files and install them on my computer. How are licensed fonts work? Is there some kind of proprietary installation?
- ctvo 5y ago
  If you violate their agreement, and they find it, they sue you.
- sodality2 5y ago
  You probably can't use it for any commercial purpose. Locally they can't really do much about it.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Copyright licensing is entirely a legal construct. Some people attempt to make DRM to enforce it, but it's certainly not a requirement. For example, if you visit my webpage, your computer will download the copyrighted text from it and save it in your cache.
- _greim_ 5y ago
  If you (the end user) download and install a font on your machine, or buy an OS with it pre-installed, then you (the end user) are paying the licensing for it. If you (the website operator) link to a font from your CSS file so end users' browsers will download and render text with it, then you (the website operator) are paying the licensing fees.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

perardi 5y ago

Well by gosh, I am old enough to remember Adobe Multiple Masters… https://blog.typekit.com/2014/07/30/the-adobe-originals-silver-anniversary-story-how-the-originals-endured-in-an-ever-changing-industry/ https://blog.typekit.com/2014/07/30/the-adobe-originals-silv... …a technology which went absolutely nowhere. Makes me glad to see Helvetica is now available as variable, as well as a non-trivial number of open-source fonts. https://fonts.google.com/?vfonly=true&sort=popularity https://fonts.google.com/?vfonly=true&sort=popularity (Still waiting for Roboto, though. Slab and mono are there, the main sans isn’t yet, which is too bad.)

hyper_dynamics 5y ago
I bought a license for Myriad Pro MM for 400 Deutsche Mark before it was cool :D

seumars 5y ago

Helvetica Now is such a departure from what makes the typeface a classic that I think Monotype kept Helvetica in the name mostly for marketing purposes. To me CommercialType’s Neue Haas Grotesk is the absolute best digitalization of Miedingers original drawings.

crazygringo 5y ago
Can you elaborate? I'm comparing the two e.g. on MyFonts: https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/neue-haas-grotesk/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/neue-haas-grotesk/ Or specifically for the medium text: https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now/text-medium/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now/text-medium/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/neue-haas-grotesk/pro-text-65-medium/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/neue-haas-grotesk/pro... Aside from the fact that they're scaled slightly differently, nothing whatsoever jumps out to me as noticeably different, in any weight, except that Neue Haas Grotesk has descenders that seem unnaturally short, but I can't tell if that might be a rendering box clipping issue. What makes Helvetica Now "such a departure" and the name Helvetica just "marketing"? Whatever difference there is seems extremely subtle to my eyes...
- ardit33 5y ago
  They are very different fonts. I have used them both in apps, and they both have their quirks. I excepted Helvetica Now to be slightly better/modernized version of traditional helvetica, but it is not. It feels different (not better). Nue Hass Grotesk has its own issues. It has a very industrial feel, and make it great for single line of text as a display font. It fails if your text is over 2-3 lines (eg. news headlines). I think Bloomberg news uses it successfully, as it matches its 'industrial/business' feel, but it is not a 'warm' font. The lesson I learned: The perfect font doesn't exist. They all have flaws.
  - crazygringo 5y ago
    Again, just... not seeing it? Can you point to any actual visual difference, something objectively measurable, as opposed to subjectively "different" or "better"? I'm feeling like I'm in crazytown, you're saying they're "very different" and the letterforms just look... virtually identical to me. Totally same personality and all. I'd wonder if I needed higher resolution, but you're talking about using them in apps, so that's definitely not the case.

todd3834 5y ago

Am I crazy for expecting fonts to be free? There are so many good options that I can use without paying a license fee. I can't imagine liking the tiny differences in a font so much that I would get myself locked into a yearly licensing fee.

speedgoose 5y ago
I wouldn't pay an expensive yearly fee for a font, but as software developers like to get paid, graphic designers do as well. Of course you have a lot of graphic designers who do that as a hobby or don't want money and share it freely, but graphic design is a bit different than open source code because the creator doesn't get as much benefits from sharing the work.
rubyist5eva 5y ago
Yes, you are crazy and perhaps even entitled to think that you deserve the fruit of all font creator’s labour for nothing.
- netr0ute 5y ago
  Google Fonts disagrees.
  - rubyist5eva 5y ago
    Show me where I can get Pragmata Pro on Google Fonts.
com2kid 5y ago
> Am I crazy for expecting fonts to be free? There are so many good options that I can use without paying a license fee. I can't imagine liking the tiny differences in a font so much that I would get myself locked into a yearly licensing fee. Having worked at Microsoft for years, I also got a chance to work directly with Monotype on custom fonts for a project's specific needs (wearable, tiny screen, specific DPI). Monotype is amazing to work with. And given the amount of work they did, and what we got out of it, the price was absurdly reasonable. For your blog? Use a free font. But if you need a custom font, you really do need a custom font, and Monotype is #1 in the industry for a good reason.

oliwarner 5y ago

Only a psychopath puts font altering controls after the text it alters. Nearly unusable on mobile in paragraph mode because it's moving all over the place. Nice font but, as ever, shame about the licensing.

DataCrayon 5y ago

Nice! However, I prefer IBM Plex[1], and it has the advantage of being an open-source project! I have recently re-designed my CV (15 pages down to 2) and used IBM Plex for all of it... happy so far. [1] https://github.com/IBM/plex https://github.com/IBM/plex

Ericson2314 5y ago

I hope Knuth is smiling that Metafont-style procedural fonts are winning in the end after decades of haters :D.

lerie 5y ago
knuth.
threepio 5y ago
Variable fonts aren't "Metafont-style procedural fonts"
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  Tell me more?

jstx1 5y ago

Do you genuinely notice differences between fonts? I have a general sense of monospaced vs proportional and serif vs sans-serif. Past that it's mostly all the same to me and I'm kind of impressed that people pay so much attention to the tiny details (and maybe questioning whether they really do or whether fonts are kind of like wine tasting).

kroltan 5y ago
I don't think "you" as in "the general user base" notices the differences between fonts, but there certainly is some innate sense of fitness to a design. Similar to how people can tell something is cohesive or jankily designed, even if they can't pinpoint what causes the jank. Personally, I can't recognize specific fonts in the wild (especially Helvetica and its infinite lookalikes), but can certainly feel when a site uses an inappropriate font (usually too thin, but also things like using a UI font for longer-form text), to the extent I have a few userscripts that change some popular site's fonts to something more appropriate in my optinion.
- _fat_santa 5y ago
  I just released an update to one of my apps that adds a typography library. Like you said font's are a very subtle thing and as I was converting my app I didn't notice that much. But after pushing the update and seeing the two versions (before and after the upgrade) side by side you see that proper typography can help make an app or a website look that much more "professional". The app before didn't look bad, but it had a sheen of "some guy built this in his basement". Now when I look at the app I get a "ok well a cash strapped startup built this"
Pentamerous 5y ago
They do. As fast as I can look at a picture of a cat or a dog and tell you which of those animals it is, when my husband sees a font he immediatly knows which font it is. I find it fascinating. He is also my go to person when I choose fonts because he always give critiques I would never think of.
- 5y ago

compi 5y ago

Web fonts are so weird, to display this site I had to download the advertised font as a .WOFF file to my computer. I now have a fully featured copy of what they are selling. I know they are actually selling the license to use it but still it seems weird that any site that licenses and uses this will also be mass distributing it to peoples machines.

lights0123 5y ago
It's the same concept as Windows. You can (as in physically, not as in "it's allowed") download and use it without a license, and no one will care if it's just you personally, but expect lawyers if you're a big company.

rebuilder 5y ago

First impression: wow, they aced the execution on this advertising. Just the right level of cheeky. 2nd impression: Did they intentionally put the white monotype logo on a mainly white animated header so it kind of disfigures the font shown therein? Surely that can’t be a mistake!

huashu 5y ago

really amazing work by the monotype team. As always, font licensing is a very tricky business, so I understand everyone's frustration here. If any of you are looking for an open-sourced sans serifs for your sass and other projects, I covered a couple in my newsletter. I go over how to use them with examples and use cases. some are variable: https://fonts.substack.com/p/dosis https://fonts.substack.com/p/dosis https://fonts.substack.com/p/fow-no4-libre-franklin-a-versatile https://fonts.substack.com/p/fow-no4-libre-franklin-a-versat...

_greim_ 5y ago

Dragging the "optical size" slider to a lower value, I'm horrified to see that the cutoff on the lowercase 'e' is no longer parallel to the direction of the text. This was always my go-to way of differentiating Helvetica from look alikes. Now I have to find a new technique :(

amvp 5y ago

The extreme values for "Optical Size" really alter the character of the font for me. Changing the angle of the lower arc of the "e" for example really alter how the font feels, and it's unrecognisable to me as Helvetica: https://imgur.com/a/vtQZc9I https://imgur.com/a/vtQZc9I

mgdlbp 5y ago
Huh, I'd assumed that ink traps would somehow be absent from fonts intended for screen use. Thinking about it now, though, it does make sense that (at least on typical computers) it's the same font file used on-screen as sent to the printer, and at small sizes on-screen they're probably hidden by hinting anyway. A cursory search also reveals that varying paper and ink conditions made for an age-old problem of achieving consistent weight. And indeed, the distinctive spur of the 'R' all but disappears at low optical size. Something else I never noticed: the spur of the 'a' changes from vertical to horizontal at high weights in many grotesques.

dhosek 5y ago

It's still disconcerting to me to see that monotype.com after the Helvetica headline. Monotype and Linotype were fierce rivals since their inception in the late 19th century. The cases where a typeface was offered for both Monotype and Linotype hot metal were rare (Times New Roman and Sabon being the most notable cases). It was only in the post-digital era that we saw consolidation where Agfa (at that time wholly owned by Bayer, the aspirin people) bought the company¹ and merged it with their prepress division, Agfa Compugraphic. It was later sold to a private equity firm who 7 years later bought Linotype, at that time owned by German printing company Heidelberg. They've continued their acquisitions since then purchasing FontShop, the largest indie vendor of typefaces, ITC which was founded as a platform-independent supplier of typeface designs and, most recently URW, a newer entry in the type world but largely influential for high-quality designs (alongside some copied designs) and for the creation of Ikarus which was the first outline-based type description system, predating even Metafont.² 1. The late 20th century Monotype was the descendant of the English spin-off of the American parent company. Lanston Monotype did not survive the transition from hot metal typesetting and was never the significant producer of new designs that English Monotype was. Last I heard, the remains of American Monotype (aka Lanston Monotype) were held by a Canadian printer, although that was 20 years ago and he was not a young man so I don't know now). 2. I had previously thought that Metafont was the first outline-based type design system, not realizing Ikarus's priority until recently.

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
Ah, so I wasn't imagining it. I know little about font history, but I know that Arial is a Monotype thing, and Arial is a metrically-compatible Helvetica look-alike, so it seemed strange that Helvetica would be under the same brand.
- dhosek 5y ago
  I remember talking to a Monotype executive in the wake of the Microsoft deal that gave us Arial, Book Antiqua, etc. He was embarrassed about having done it, but he said that the deal saved the company from failure. Out of the whole set, Century Gothic is the most interesting face. They reproportioned the Twentieth Century typeface (itself a clone of Futura) to match the metrics of Avant Garde and ended up with something that is neither of its predecessors. I suspect that the Microsoft Typography group also was created around as a result of shame around the MS-Monotype deal, although I don't know for certain and I've lost touch with the people that I used to know from Microsoft Typography.

jressey 5y ago

"Helvetica® Now Variable builds on the groundbreaking work of 2019’s Helvetica Now release." I am so far out of touch that I cannot believe this is relevant to anyone outside of designers who build their career on constantly changing to the newest thing?

_huayra_ 5y ago

Can someone explain why pro fonts are so damn expensive? There are a bazillion free fonts which are great for most uses, but for a font like this where it's not as if the font was custom calligraphy (e.g. for a video game or something) and is just a "good normal font", what exactly goes on to make this font and others like it worth the money? I genuinely don't know if there are special features of this font that are beyond what you can get from very similar free fonts or if it's just some brand recognition thing.

npteljes 5y ago
Brand is definitely a strong driver. The number of styles, and the number of glyphs is also an aspect. Being worth the money is compared not just the font itself, but to what you expect in return. If you're thinking about how popular your mobile OS got, it could make sense to design a distinct font for it.

flixic 5y ago

Really great font. I loved Helvetica, Helvetica Now was a great extension, but was just so many files, and this is a great fix to the problem. I would have liked slant to be yet another variable instead of just two variations, but this is still nice. And yet, I just can't imagine ever using this in actual design. Licensing makes it ridiculous to recommend to almost all clients, and there are great, much more affordable alternatives, Inter being completely free.

malkia 5y ago

So what happened to the hacker news page and the new font (is it something wrong with my browser, but things look a bit different last few days)

systoll 5y ago
The only changes in the CSS this year are around word-wrapping. If it looks different, something’s changed on your machine

hamburgerwah 5y ago

Part of the "never own anything" "infinite rent seeking" license mindset. They are dirtbags. Pass.

lerie 5y ago

it appears someone should make it free. i bet someone beats me to it.

jijji 5y ago

people pay for fonts? I just figured everyone downloaded them off of dafont.com and was done with it...