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Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

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Re: Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

#31

Post by Gracana »

cpr wrote: post #27

Is it OK to say the emperor has no clothes? I think this is an ugly, clumsy typeface, designed primarily for legibility in a particular small application (the watch). Now it's now rumored to be destined as the system font in 10.11. Going from graceful, readable Lucida to ok-only-in-Retina-but-even-then-hard-to-read-and-overused Helvetica to this new San Francisco is just plain frustrating. Maybe readability trumps ta…

What's ugly about it? It doesn't even seem interesting or different enough from anything else to call it beautiful or ugly.

Re: Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

#32

Post by mortenjorck »

cpr wrote: post #27

Is it OK to say the emperor has no clothes? I think this is an ugly, clumsy typeface, designed primarily for legibility in a particular small application (the watch). Now it's now rumored to be destined as the system font in 10.11. Going from graceful, readable Lucida to ok-only-in-Retina-but-even-then-hard-to-read-and-overused Helvetica to this new San Francisco is just plain frustrating. Maybe readability trumps ta…

I have a theory that every type family looks ugly when it replaces another one in a familiar context. We become so acclimated to a particular rhythm of strokes and counters that seeing them changed in situ inevitably looks wrong. In time, though, our brains adjust and the new typography comes to look right.

Re: Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

#33

Post by cmelbye »

cpr wrote: post #27

Is it OK to say the emperor has no clothes? I think this is an ugly, clumsy typeface, designed primarily for legibility in a particular small application (the watch). Now it's now rumored to be destined as the system font in 10.11. Going from graceful, readable Lucida to ok-only-in-Retina-but-even-then-hard-to-read-and-overused Helvetica to this new San Francisco is just plain frustrating. Maybe readability trumps ta…

You're unhappy with the readability of San Francisco? I've heard the opposite from most people who have seen it on the Watch.

I think it's quite a beautiful typeface, and I'm glad they're expanding its usage to their new keyboards and iOS/OS X. I think it will work out great for them.

Re: Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

#35

Post by cpr »

cmelbye wrote: post #33
cpr wrote: post #27

Is it OK to say the emperor has no clothes? I think this is an ugly, clumsy typeface, designed primarily for legibility in a particular small application (the watch). Now it's now rumored to be destined as the system font in 10.11. Going from graceful, readable Lucida to ok-only-in-Retina-but-even-then-hard-to-read-and-overused Helvetica to this new San Francisco is just plain frustrating. Maybe readability trumps ta…

You're unhappy with the readability of San Francisco? I've heard the opposite from most people who have seen it on the Watch. I think it's quite a beautiful typeface, and I'm glad they're expanding its usage to their new keyboards and iOS/OS X. I think it will work out great for them.

No, I'm unhappy with its style, which is clunky and clumsy.

Re: Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

#36

Post by Aloisius »

The Apple Watch Design Resources license where the font seems to have originated is pretty strict about using this font:

Limited License. Subject to the terms of this License, you may use the Apple Font solely for purposes of design and development of applications for the Apple Watch. The foregoing right includes the right to show the Apple Font in screen shots, images or mock-ups of an Apple Watch application.

https://developer.apple.com/watchkit/ (after clicking on Apple Watch Design Resources)

Re: Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

#37

Post by jamesdelaneyie »

thanatropism wrote: post #25

Ask type professionals: what are good typefaces for spreadsheets (tabular numeric data), onscreen and in print? Onscreen I've been switching Excel's default to Consolas, which is more compact yet more readable. Other programs have unchangeable defaults (but they rely more on fix-width, too).

If you choose a Opentype typeface with Tabular figures as an option, you could have a high quality typeface that prints out the numbers that are fixed width, but might be significantly more aesthetically considered than standard monospaced font.

Here's some typefaces that are for the most part, only numbers, that I think might look rather nice for just tabbed numerical data: http://www.typography.com/fonts/numbers/inside/claimcheck http://www.typography.com/fonts/numbers/inside/greenback

Re: Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

#38

Post by petilon »

cmelbye wrote: post #33
cpr wrote: post #27

Is it OK to say the emperor has no clothes? I think this is an ugly, clumsy typeface, designed primarily for legibility in a particular small application (the watch). Now it's now rumored to be destined as the system font in 10.11. Going from graceful, readable Lucida to ok-only-in-Retina-but-even-then-hard-to-read-and-overused Helvetica to this new San Francisco is just plain frustrating. Maybe readability trumps ta…

You're unhappy with the readability of San Francisco? I've heard the opposite from most people who have seen it on the Watch. I think it's quite a beautiful typeface, and I'm glad they're expanding its usage to their new keyboards and iOS/OS X. I think it will work out great for them.

It does look good on the Watch. But that doesn't automatically mean it would be a good choice for other uses. In my subjective opinion it looks pretty bad as OS X system font. Take a look: http://9to5mac.com/2014/11/19/how-to-use-the-apple-watch-fon...

Re: Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

#39

Post by jamesdelaneyie »

gpvos wrote: post #24

Can we do away with those s-t ligatures please? They're visually disturbing and serve no purpose. In a font for reproducing ancient text, okay. But not in any modern text please.

They are decorative ligatures so they do serve no purpose other than visually disturbing you ;)

Re: Show HN: Typedetail.com – featuring Apple's new typeface San Francisco

#40

Post by cmelbye »

petilon wrote: post #38
cmelbye wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're unhappy with the readability of San Francisco? I've heard the opposite from most people who have seen it on the Watch. I think it's quite a beautiful typeface, and I'm glad they're expanding its usage to their new keyboards and iOS/OS X. I think it will work out great for them.

It does look good on the Watch. But that doesn't automatically mean it would be a good choice for other uses. In my subjective opinion it looks pretty bad as OS X system font. Take a look: http://9to5mac.com/2014/11/19/how-to-use-the-apple-watch-fon...

We're operating off of rumors and a font hack that uses a font designed for hi-fidelity mockups of Apple Watch apps. I'm going to wait and see what Apple releases.
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