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The Interface font family

rsms.me

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Re: The Interface font family

#51

Post by DiabloD3 »

Dear font authors:

Please screenshot renderings via multiple important renderer, important ex: Apple Safari on a Retina box (highlights weird over-bolding due to their hinting prefs), Chrome and Firefox on Windows (both use Freetype, but custom builds and don't quite match stock), and anything normal on a Linux that doesn't use a hacked up Freetype (ergo Ubuntu is out, so is RHEL/Centos and Fedora).

Also, in both white on black and black on white, because font rendering is non-linear in respect to the 2.2 gamma curve (fun fact: everybody still uses 1.8 gamma for font rendering).

Re: The Interface font family

#52

Post by jack_jennings »

davidad_ wrote: post #50
jack_jennings wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Rasmus, I think that at the point size at which this is meant to be used—e.g. around 11px ( https://rsms.me/interface/lab/?size=11&compare=roboto ) —the differences between the two become harder to distinguish. The issue is really that the character of the type is going to be dictated by the systematic decisions: stroke weight, x-height, proportion, spacing. Starting from Roboto and not changing these parameters i…

FWIW, I do find Interface to be subjectively noticeably more pleasant than Roboto in the comparison here.

The comparison is not great for objective comparison—the metrics of Interface have been changed so that 11px =/= 11px from one to the other… this was the best approximation that I could get in-browser. Usually you'd want to set the two typefaces up so that the x-height is the same, and in this case Roboto is probably slightly larger still, and hence a bit darker in overall color.

Re: The Interface font family

#54

Post by FireBeyond »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #51

Dear font authors: Please screenshot renderings via multiple important renderer, important ex: Apple Safari on a Retina box (highlights weird over-bolding due to their hinting prefs), Chrome and Firefox on Windows (both use Freetype, but custom builds and don't quite match stock), and anything normal on a Linux that doesn't use a hacked up Freetype (ergo Ubuntu is out, so is RHEL/Centos and Fedora). Also, in both whi…

> anything normal on a Linux that doesn't use a hacked up Freetype (ergo Ubuntu is out, so is RHEL/Centos and Fedora).

Your definition of "normal", "important" Linux _excludes_ Ubuntu, RHEL/CentOS, and Fedora?

I get your point about hacked up FreeType, but given that the three largest distributions on the planet are excluded from your list doesn't really gel.

Re: The Interface font family

#55

Post by rasmusfabbe »

fastball wrote: post #38
rasmusfabbe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello Jack. I'm the creator of Interface. Indeed many glyphs's outlines comes from Roboto (though fitted into different glyph boxes.) The "playground" feature of the website even has a feature for comparing Interface with Roboto. When you do, and you look at the details, you'll find that Interface is actually quite different from Roboto, at least as far as "different" goes with utilitarian UI fonts. https://rsms.me/i…

You should probably be loading the Roboto font via Google Fonts or similar, because my system does not have Roboto installed by default, so it is defaulting to serif in your comparison. At least I think that's the issue.

Roboto is already being loaded from google fonts (https://github.com/rsms/interface/blob/b91dd3af/docs/lab/ind...) However, I think Chrome might do something weird where it fails to actually load the font files when later the font family "Roboto" is requested (https://github.com/rsms/interface/blob/b91dd3af/docs/lab/ind...) — a common hack for this issue is to have an invisible element in the document that explicitly uses the font and forces the browser to load it at document-load time. Could try that hack here.

Anyhow, the version of Roboto served from google fonts is an older version and a subset of the "real" roboto, as can be fetched from roboto's source code repository. If you have Roboto installed locally, you probably have the more recent and more complete version installed and will likely want to compare with that (rather than what's on google fonts.)

Edit: https://twitter.com/stuartpb/status/900484392472109056 points out that @import must be at the beginning of a style declaration. Website has been updated.

Re: The Interface font family

#56

Post by rasmusfabbe »

jack_jennings wrote: post #39
rasmusfabbe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello Jack. I'm the creator of Interface. Indeed many glyphs's outlines comes from Roboto (though fitted into different glyph boxes.) The "playground" feature of the website even has a feature for comparing Interface with Roboto. When you do, and you look at the details, you'll find that Interface is actually quite different from Roboto, at least as far as "different" goes with utilitarian UI fonts. https://rsms.me/i…

Hi Rasmus, I think that at the point size at which this is meant to be used—e.g. around 11px ( https://rsms.me/interface/lab/?size=11&compare=roboto ) —the differences between the two become harder to distinguish. The issue is really that the character of the type is going to be dictated by the systematic decisions: stroke weight, x-height, proportion, spacing. Starting from Roboto and not changing these parameters i…

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Indeed really small sizes like 11px, distinguishing factors are few and even San Francisco and Roboto start looking like the same font, at least as far as most people are concerned. The goal with Interface is not to create a unique-looking typeface, or even to try to make something different in terms of style, but to create the best possible small-size, computer-screen, user-interface oriented font, even if that means that some characteristics become very similar to other typefaces. For instance.

Re: The Interface font family

#57

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

Sadly, digits have a different width, so if you have e.g. a right-aligned, increasing numerical value in your UI, the left digit of it will "wiggle around" if the last digit iterates through 0-9, and if you have numerical values, they won't align.

This may be OK for text, but specifically for user interfaces, this is the very first thing I check when considering whether a font is usable.

With a good font, it will be immediately obvious which of these amounts is more, while this font would likely mislead you:

$ 100000

$ 111111

Ironically, Roboto seems to get it right.

Re: The Interface font family

#58

Post by rasmusfabbe »

jack_jennings wrote: post #52
davidad_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I do find Interface to be subjectively noticeably more pleasant than Roboto in the comparison here.

The comparison is not great for objective comparison—the metrics of Interface have been changed so that 11px =/= 11px from one to the other… this was the best approximation that I could get in-browser. Usually you'd want to set the two typefaces up so that the x-height is the same, and in this case Roboto is probably slightly larger still, and hence a bit darker in overall color.

Actually, I think you want to compare apples & apples, meaning Font A and Font B at the same size and line height.

Re: The Interface font family

#59

Post by RX14 »

thinbeige wrote: post #3

A disproportionate sans serif without any letter spacing. It's free though, so better than nothing. Edit: Dear downvoters, what I am saying is that you can take any ramdom sans serif, reduce the letter-spacing and you end up with a similar looking font face which might be even more balanced. Despite my criticism, I expressed my high appreciation that the creator offers his work for free. If you disagree let me know w…

I'm looking at the rendered image and the letter spacing seems vastly better than it is when rendered on the page (Freetype, Linux, with a few simple fontconfig improvements).

Re: The Interface font family

#60

Post by jack_jennings »

rasmusfabbe wrote: post #58
jack_jennings wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison is not great for objective comparison—the metrics of Interface have been changed so that 11px =/= 11px from one to the other… this was the best approximation that I could get in-browser. Usually you'd want to set the two typefaces up so that the x-height is the same, and in this case Roboto is probably slightly larger still, and hence a bit darker in overall color.

Actually, I think you want to compare apples & apples, meaning Font A and Font B at the same size and line height.

Except that isn't how font metrics work—the size of the type on the body is not necessarily equivalent between two different fonts. There is no stanard that says that 12pt Times shares any vertical metrics with 12pt Helvetica, or 12pt anything else.

The most informed comparision can be made when the x-height is optically equivalent. The other option, cap height, isn't as useful because it is then harder to judge the lowercase (a majority of the letterforms).

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