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The Interface font family

rsms.me

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Re: The Interface font family

#61

Post by jack_jennings »

rasmusfabbe wrote: post #56
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…

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-interfa…

My argument is only that starting with the proportion and metrics of Roboto and not changing them means that what you will end up with at best is a marginal improvment over Roboto. If "marinal improvement over Roboto" is what you are aiming for, great, but don't oversell it or your work will be dismissed in the same way that I did in the original post. There are myriad solutions to how letterforms are created, and it isn't a foregone conclusion that these forms are or will continue to be "the best".

Re: The Interface font family

#63

Post by [deleted] »

FireBeyond wrote: post #54
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.

[deleted]

Re: The Interface font family

#64

Post by khedoros1 »

jlgaddis wrote: post #34
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…

> Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. [0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

IMO, it's balanced out by the fuller explanation of what they intended to say and the request for clarification of what was wrong. It's not like they just added a "Why am I being downvoted?" without adding any further value.

Re: The Interface font family

#65

Post by rvern »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #57

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…

This has nothing to do with "good" or "usable" fonts. Whether digits align is controlled with the pnum and tnum OpenType features.

Re: The Interface font family

#66

Post by beefsack »

FireBeyond wrote: post #54
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.

Aren't the FreeType patches less relevant now since the new v40 interpreter[1] was released?

[1]: https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/subpixel-hinting.htm...

Re: The Interface font family

#67

Post by BafS »

Thanks for this font, I really appreciate the mix between Roboto and Helvetica or San Francisco. The cuts of Interface are more horizontals than Roboto (look the S for example) and I find it more readable, rational and beautiful. Good job !

Re: The Interface font family

#68

Post by nonissue »

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.

I think what jack's saying is that "font-size" to some extent is arbitrary. It's not scientific or worthwhile to compare fonts across a specific size if they have different x-heights. The only meaningful comparison is to evaluate legibility for fonts that are "relatively" the same size. For example, if Interface 12pt is equivalent in x-height to Roboto at 12.5pt, and Roboto is more legible, and legibility is the goal, then obviously the user should pick Roboto at 12.5pt (all things considered).

Re: The Interface font family

#69

Post by rasmusfabbe »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #57

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…

Normally this is done with "tabular numbers", an alternate set of glyphs in the font where all digit glyphs is equally wide. However, another feature a font can provide is "proportional numbers"—the inverse of tabular numbers. Most fonts usually provide one or the other. Roboto for instance provides "proportional numbers" as an option, and uses tabular numbers by default. Interface by contrast uses proportional numbers by default, and the plan is to add tabular numbers as a feature that you opt in to for the scenarios you point out (e.g. tables.) In CSS you'd opt-in to tabular numbers with: `font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums`

Re: The Interface font family

#70

Post by CodeWriter23 »

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…

Screen shot renderings? How about just dogfooding the font so one can see how it actually performs.
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