The Interface font family • Hacker News Board

Re: The Interface font family

#91

Post by tudorw » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

ojosilva wrote: post #49

tudorw wrote: post #32

system font for the win...

For application UI, definitely. For website design... I think it may be a little overused these days.

yes, I'm not adverse to a spot of nice typography, aesthetics and presentation are key to getting a message across, for productivity UI in particular I like at least the choice to have a system font, it's usually the nicest rendering font and things like multi language support mostly just work.

Re: The Interface font family

#92

Post by majewsky » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 5:28 PM UTC

rasmusfabbe wrote: post #80

rasmusfabbe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 numbe…

Tabular numbers added and will be included in the next release (1.2) https://github.com/rsms/interface/issues/10#issuecomment-324...

What is the rationale for defaulting to proportional numbers? I always assumed that "tabular numbers" are just "numbers", and deviating from that standard sounds like a recipe for needless confusion. Sure, you can flip a CSS switch, but how many webdesigners know that these switches even exist? And what about native UI frameworks where these switches don't even exist?

Re: The Interface font family

#93

Post by majewsky » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 5:31 PM UTC

jack_jennings wrote: post #31

wodenokoto wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a tail-less t? Google didn't help me at all on this one.

Compare Futura's "tail-less t": http://www.identifont.com/show?M2 to Source Sans with a hooked tail: http://www.identifont.com/find?font=Source+Sans&q=Go

Looking at the Futura specimen left me with a distinct taste of Swedish meatballs in my mouth.