9 ms·

Twitter stops using Helevetica Neue in favour of Gotham

50 points by kenrick95 12y ago

alelefant 12y ago
I'm by no means a typography expert, in fact I don't particularly care about typography all that much. I like the new font, but there's some characters (e.g. "o") that just seem like they have an extra pixel or two on the outer edge. It still looks nice and clean though.
kevinwang 12y ago
It looks good. But Helvetica was good too. Anyone have any thoughts on why the switch?
- redwall_hp 12y ago
  Because enormous serif type is trendy right now.
  - LoganCale 12y ago
    Gotham and Helvetica are both sans-serif.
- Goopplesoft 12y ago
  From their assets site: > Words don’t just hold meaning; they communicate by their very form. We primarily use the Gotham font family: elegant and direct, stylish but not exclusive. Putting well-designed words in our product enhances the user experience. Not sure what the 'but not exclusive.' is implying though... Source: https://about.twitter.com/press/brand-assets https://about.twitter.com/press/brand-assets
  - 80 12y ago
    Still not sure if I agree with it but Lawrence Weiner has a great quote on Helvetica: "[Helvetica] it’s one of the type faces that I absolutely detest. It’s totally authoritative. It in fact does not adapt itself to things and all information that comes out in Helvetica is saying exactly the same thing: this is cultural, this is intellectual, and this is intelligent. I’m rather afraid that words don’t start off being cultural, intellectual, or intelligent."
    - joezydeco 12y ago
      Except you know what? I can see Helvetica on my screen. Gotham is literally disappearing into the background.
  - prawn 12y ago
    "Not sure what the 'but not exclusive.' is implying though..." As in not snobby. Imagine a wealthy and well-dressed business man who still takes the time to help you in the street rather than ignore you because their time is more important than yours.
- dueprocess 12y ago
  Helvetica-fatigue. It's everywhere, that and Arial, Open Sans and a hundred other clones. Gothic is a nice change. It's roomier. More easy going. I like it too.
  - largehotcoffee 12y ago
    Only it's not at all.
tvladeck 12y ago
I'm getting so frustrated with Twitter, as a shareholder and big believer in the company. I really think they need to be focusing on new services and experiences (actual new functionality!) with the content on their platform. For example, many of their users are quite passive - why not improve the experience for the logged-out user? Twitter could be a great source of real-time news for everyone - not just heavy users of the platform. In addition, did you know that if you paste a url into the search you can see the tweets that link to it? There are great conversations happening about published stories - yet that content has no way to get surfaced, really. I should be able to see the twitter conversations that are happening around every piece of content on the web, and I can't! That's crazy. I get that design is important, but Twitter needs to innovate on its product. Rant over.
- rezistik 12y ago
  We can only assume they've had their entire engineering team fighting for weeks over the decision. There is no way they have a team of engineers focused on development of features, bugs etc and a separate team of designers, marketers or branding specialists who focus on the UI/UX, and other visual decisions like font choice, uh uh, no way I say, I say no way. They are way too small of a company to have dedicated designers.
- revelation 12y ago
  The logged-out user experience (or even just the web/mobile experience) is really odd. Apart from a bar permanently blocking screen real estate telling you to signup/login, there are times where it simply doesn't work (not down, just not working), translations are mismatched/wrong, things like viewing an image.. simply don't work, and never have for me. It literally gives a black popup with nothing happening and this old iPhone 1.0 feel to it. For a long time, they didn't even manage to provide an up to date version of someones tweets. Heres a realtime communication website, and yet when logged out, tweets would be at times delayed for hours and days.
  - sesqu 12y ago
    The most common thing I struggle with as an accountless user is linking to tweets. It can take me a good while to find a link to a tweet I'm looking at. The second most common problem I have is finding a user, even if I know their handle. It was hard to believe how difficult that was the first time I tried it (admittedly, vanity URLs have made this easier).
Avitas 12y ago
Here is a comparison with Helvetica (not HN) and Gotham with commentary and history: http://thinkcreateblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/face-off/ http://thinkcreateblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/face-off/
- psychometry 12y ago
  Helvetica is ideal for print work, especially headings, as the last few decades' worth of design can attest to. I hate it as a body font on the screen, though. It's too thin at small sizes, which makes it harder to scan text when compared to Lucida Grande, Gotham, etc.
- PhantomGremlin 12y ago
  The problem with that article is it's too "inside baseball". It's probably great for font aficionados. But I just want some simple side-by-side images showing how the two fonts differ.
mahouse 12y ago
What about us Windows users that have always seen Arial? With all honesty, Gotham looks very bad when drawn by the ClearType renderer.
- darrenkopp 12y ago
  what browser are you using? looks great to me on firefox. chrome butchers fonts though.
  - mahouse 12y ago
    it's chrome, so you're right.
- LoganCale 12y ago
  Everything looks bad with ClearType.
  - scotth 12y ago
    These days it does, but I remember that when ClearType first came out it was mind-blowing. These days it's looking pretty shabby when compared to high density displays.
masterleep 12y ago
I care less about what font is used and more about not having the text displayed at seemingly random sizes from one page to another, or even on the same page. Insanity!
- logn 12y ago
  I agree with this. The random size fonts took me a while to understand what it meant until I realized my popular tweets were a bigger font. I like the uniformity of one font size. If they want to indicate which tweets are important then add data showing stats but don't mess with font sizes.
doctorshady 12y ago
What if you're a Lynx user?
- m_mueller 12y ago
  ... you won't care?
  - doctorshady 12y ago
    As opposed to if you weren't a Lynx user?
- ihuman 12y ago
  If you are using any terminal-based web browser, then you get whatever font you have set for your terminal.
  - tragicAndCruel 12y ago
    I have mine set to Times New Roman for maximum banality.
tonymon 12y ago
Well, now it seems like they totally screwed up with non-latin characters.
hiphopyo 12y ago
Twitter just went from being an ubiquitous part of our everyday lives to some silly art project. #wrongmove
- Gracana 12y ago
  Because they changed the font from one well-known and widely used font to another?
  - hiphopyo 12y ago
    You talk as if they're the same.
bluthru 12y ago
Does the tracking seem really wide to anyone else? It makes the tweets difficult to read and causes the words to blend together.
largehotcoffee 12y ago
Honestly all of the new design changes at Twitter have been looking awful. I can only assume there is someone new in charge that is messing everything up.
interg12 12y ago
Is anybody else bothered by the amount of news this is causing?
devanti 12y ago
Reminds me of Comic Sans
ereckers 12y ago
Hilarious. It was totally noticeable today when I visited a user Twitter homepage. I actually thought they started allowing user customizations per page. I thought the MySpace conversion was starting in earnest.
hnriot 12y ago
On my non retina mac this doesn't look very good at all. Obviously I need a new laptop to keep up with Twitter.
chestnut-tree 12y ago
EDIT: Oops, posted in the wrong spot, this was meant to be a reply to tvladeck's post. "In addition, did you know that if you paste a url into the search you can see the tweets that link to it? There are great conversations happening about published stories - yet that content has no way to get surfaced" I've done this before to view what people are saying about a link or story, but I disagree about "great conversations" taking place. A lot of people simply re-tweet a link or add a few words, but I'd argue that often there is no great insight or "discussion" and most of it is disconnected from other twitter users. (Can you really have a great "conversation" using a 140 character limit?) I do agree that twitter doesn't use it's content to best effect. There are a lot of users who cluster around shared interests and twitter could aggregate interesting links that are constantly being posted around topics. Other sites like Buzzfeed and Storify editorialise a story by picking tweets that reflect a range of opinions around a story. Is this something that Twitter should do? (I don't know) It would be a shift in focus for them and something not all users would welcome. Anyway, back to the original story - I'm glad they've dropped Helevtica. It's too over-used and feels like a bland but safe choice for designers. Not sure about Gotham yet. It feels a bit too tall and narrow.

50 points by kenrick95 12y ago

I'm by no means a typography expert, in fact I don't particularly care about typography all that much. I like the new font, but there's some characters (e.g. "o") that just seem like they have an extra pixel or two on the outer edge. It still looks nice and clean though.

kevinwang 12y ago

It looks good. But Helvetica was good too. Anyone have any thoughts on why the switch?

redwall_hp 12y ago
Because enormous serif type is trendy right now.
- LoganCale 12y ago
  Gotham and Helvetica are both sans-serif.
Goopplesoft 12y ago
From their assets site: > Words don’t just hold meaning; they communicate by their very form. We primarily use the Gotham font family: elegant and direct, stylish but not exclusive. Putting well-designed words in our product enhances the user experience. Not sure what the 'but not exclusive.' is implying though... Source: https://about.twitter.com/press/brand-assets https://about.twitter.com/press/brand-assets
- 80 12y ago
  Still not sure if I agree with it but Lawrence Weiner has a great quote on Helvetica: "[Helvetica] it’s one of the type faces that I absolutely detest. It’s totally authoritative. It in fact does not adapt itself to things and all information that comes out in Helvetica is saying exactly the same thing: this is cultural, this is intellectual, and this is intelligent. I’m rather afraid that words don’t start off being cultural, intellectual, or intelligent."
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    Except you know what? I can see Helvetica on my screen. Gotham is literally disappearing into the background.
- prawn 12y ago
  "Not sure what the 'but not exclusive.' is implying though..." As in not snobby. Imagine a wealthy and well-dressed business man who still takes the time to help you in the street rather than ignore you because their time is more important than yours.
dueprocess 12y ago
Helvetica-fatigue. It's everywhere, that and Arial, Open Sans and a hundred other clones. Gothic is a nice change. It's roomier. More easy going. I like it too.
- largehotcoffee 12y ago
  Only it's not at all.

tvladeck 12y ago

I'm getting so frustrated with Twitter, as a shareholder and big believer in the company. I really think they need to be focusing on new services and experiences (actual new functionality!) with the content on their platform. For example, many of their users are quite passive - why not improve the experience for the logged-out user? Twitter could be a great source of real-time news for everyone - not just heavy users of the platform. In addition, did you know that if you paste a url into the search you can see the tweets that link to it? There are great conversations happening about published stories - yet that content has no way to get surfaced, really. I should be able to see the twitter conversations that are happening around every piece of content on the web, and I can't! That's crazy. I get that design is important, but Twitter needs to innovate on its product. Rant over.

rezistik 12y ago
We can only assume they've had their entire engineering team fighting for weeks over the decision. There is no way they have a team of engineers focused on development of features, bugs etc and a separate team of designers, marketers or branding specialists who focus on the UI/UX, and other visual decisions like font choice, uh uh, no way I say, I say no way. They are way too small of a company to have dedicated designers.
revelation 12y ago
The logged-out user experience (or even just the web/mobile experience) is really odd. Apart from a bar permanently blocking screen real estate telling you to signup/login, there are times where it simply doesn't work (not down, just not working), translations are mismatched/wrong, things like viewing an image.. simply don't work, and never have for me. It literally gives a black popup with nothing happening and this old iPhone 1.0 feel to it. For a long time, they didn't even manage to provide an up to date version of someones tweets. Heres a realtime communication website, and yet when logged out, tweets would be at times delayed for hours and days.
- sesqu 12y ago
  The most common thing I struggle with as an accountless user is linking to tweets. It can take me a good while to find a link to a tweet I'm looking at. The second most common problem I have is finding a user, even if I know their handle. It was hard to believe how difficult that was the first time I tried it (admittedly, vanity URLs have made this easier).

Avitas 12y ago

Here is a comparison with Helvetica (not HN) and Gotham with commentary and history: http://thinkcreateblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/face-off/ http://thinkcreateblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/face-off/

psychometry 12y ago
Helvetica is ideal for print work, especially headings, as the last few decades' worth of design can attest to. I hate it as a body font on the screen, though. It's too thin at small sizes, which makes it harder to scan text when compared to Lucida Grande, Gotham, etc.
PhantomGremlin 12y ago
The problem with that article is it's too "inside baseball". It's probably great for font aficionados. But I just want some simple side-by-side images showing how the two fonts differ.

mahouse 12y ago

What about us Windows users that have always seen Arial? With all honesty, Gotham looks very bad when drawn by the ClearType renderer.

darrenkopp 12y ago
what browser are you using? looks great to me on firefox. chrome butchers fonts though.
- mahouse 12y ago
  it's chrome, so you're right.
LoganCale 12y ago
Everything looks bad with ClearType.
- scotth 12y ago
  These days it does, but I remember that when ClearType first came out it was mind-blowing. These days it's looking pretty shabby when compared to high density displays.

masterleep 12y ago

I care less about what font is used and more about not having the text displayed at seemingly random sizes from one page to another, or even on the same page. Insanity!

logn 12y ago
I agree with this. The random size fonts took me a while to understand what it meant until I realized my popular tweets were a bigger font. I like the uniformity of one font size. If they want to indicate which tweets are important then add data showing stats but don't mess with font sizes.

doctorshady 12y ago

What if you're a Lynx user?

m_mueller 12y ago
... you won't care?
- doctorshady 12y ago
  As opposed to if you weren't a Lynx user?
ihuman 12y ago
If you are using any terminal-based web browser, then you get whatever font you have set for your terminal.
- tragicAndCruel 12y ago
  I have mine set to Times New Roman for maximum banality.

tonymon 12y ago

Well, now it seems like they totally screwed up with non-latin characters.

hiphopyo 12y ago

Twitter just went from being an ubiquitous part of our everyday lives to some silly art project. #wrongmove

Gracana 12y ago
Because they changed the font from one well-known and widely used font to another?
- hiphopyo 12y ago
  You talk as if they're the same.

bluthru 12y ago

Does the tracking seem really wide to anyone else? It makes the tweets difficult to read and causes the words to blend together.

largehotcoffee 12y ago

Honestly all of the new design changes at Twitter have been looking awful. I can only assume there is someone new in charge that is messing everything up.

interg12 12y ago

Is anybody else bothered by the amount of news this is causing?

devanti 12y ago

Reminds me of Comic Sans

ereckers 12y ago

Hilarious. It was totally noticeable today when I visited a user Twitter homepage. I actually thought they started allowing user customizations per page. I thought the MySpace conversion was starting in earnest.

hnriot 12y ago

On my non retina mac this doesn't look very good at all. Obviously I need a new laptop to keep up with Twitter.

chestnut-tree 12y ago

EDIT: Oops, posted in the wrong spot, this was meant to be a reply to tvladeck's post. "In addition, did you know that if you paste a url into the search you can see the tweets that link to it? There are great conversations happening about published stories - yet that content has no way to get surfaced" I've done this before to view what people are saying about a link or story, but I disagree about "great conversations" taking place. A lot of people simply re-tweet a link or add a few words, but I'd argue that often there is no great insight or "discussion" and most of it is disconnected from other twitter users. (Can you really have a great "conversation" using a 140 character limit?) I do agree that twitter doesn't use it's content to best effect. There are a lot of users who cluster around shared interests and twitter could aggregate interesting links that are constantly being posted around topics. Other sites like Buzzfeed and Storify editorialise a story by picking tweets that reflect a range of opinions around a story. Is this something that Twitter should do? (I don't know) It would be a shift in focus for them and something not all users would welcome. Anyway, back to the original story - I'm glad they've dropped Helevtica. It's too over-used and feels like a bland but safe choice for designers. Not sure about Gotham yet. It feels a bit too tall and narrow.