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IBM Plex – A new typeface

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Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#171

Post by OliverJones »

A new typeface family of this scope doesn't come along very often. Sure, plenty of new fonts come out, but they contain mostly one to four styles (Roman/Oblique Normal/Bold) and have a special purpose. Two great examples are Matthew Carter's Bell Centennial (for phone book printing) and his Carter Sans (which I use for short chunks of copy).

Kris Holmes's and Chuck Bigelow's Lucida is one of the most recent comprehensive new type families, and that's from a generation ago. Other computer companies (Digital for example) helped support their effort.

So this is a big deal. It's a huge effort, and they made it open source and free. That's great. Thanks IBM, for supporting type designers. No doubt some of them are early in their careers. IBM's support has definitely given them a leg up. IBM will help us see another generation of new type.

It has decent ligatures ("fi" for example, look at the Slack desktop app's type to see what a ligature looks like). It only has one style of digits (figures, typeheads call them) rather than the choice of proportional and lining. But this is the 21st century and proportional figures are known as "old style".

It's no surprise the team wanted to make an artists' statement about their purposes and choices, and personally I found it (their web site) worth reading. It was a big nuisance to navigate, though.

I hope IBM can emerge from the cloud wars intact. It's gonna take focus. Unfortunately, a new typeface doesn't look like focus.

Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#172

Post by untangle »

jordaniusrex wrote: post #154
mlazos wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminded me exactly of that Dropbox design page at dropbox.design - it was the exact same frustrating experience. If this is a trend please make it stop.

Same agency http://www.xxix.co/

Their website UX is far worse than IBM Plex. How can it be?

Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#173

Post by meggar »

BoorishBears wrote: post #97
chao- wrote: post #81

This is one of the most frustrating page navigation experiences I have had in long a while. I tend to scroll with pgup/pgdn or arrow keys (or more occasionally, space/shift+space) and when I got to the big "IBM" logo the page just kind of stopped. I thought that was all. It wasn't until I came to this thread I realized there was more, and I should look again, but even then it took me forever to: 1. Realize I needed t…

Before clicking the link: grumble grumble typical HN, top comment is whining about the webpage instead of focusing on the content. sigh After clicking the link on my smartphone: Sweet mother of Jesus, what have they done.

I thought they turned my iPhone into a Zune for a second.

Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#174

Post by scoggs »

madspindel wrote: post #167
jordaniusrex wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same agency http://www.xxix.co/

Is this a joke? I visited the website on my phone and it's horrible broken with "cards" all over the place.

https://twitter.com/richlyons_/status/978449888655556613

I'm unsure to be honest.

Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#175

Post by memco »

I Really like the style. I think the Google Font[0] page makes it much easier to see it in action. I hope someone makes a variant with coding ligatures. It appears that it does not support the polytonic Greek characters on OSX, though it shows Greek characters are in the set--not sure if that's a Mac thing or the font.

[0] https://fonts.google.com/featured/Plex

Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#176

Post by scoggs »

Digital-Citizen wrote: post #151
forgotmypw wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily, it's just blank without JS, so I was able to move on quickly.

I concur. I'm impressed with the number of people who think that JS on most people's webpages is a good idea. Or that any JS was necessary to announce this font. It wasn't and wasn't carried off well here (nothing for the no-JS crowd). A far easier page to write up and one that would have looked better could have been done with nothing but HTML, CSS (demonstrating the font in real-world usage even), and perhaps some…

Just one centered image of a coffee mug. The coffee mug has a goofy child's face only a mother could love.

In all CAPS below the picture, centered on the coffee mug it reads:

YOU ARE MY MOM

BECAUSE I AM YOUR SON

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#177

Post by robotresearcher »

Semiapies wrote: post #102

The most offensively poorly-engineered page I've been to in years, all to promote Arial...Sorry, our totally original grotesque font inspired by Helvetica, don't steal! . What is IBM even doing that's worthwhile?

> don't steal

https://github.com/IBM/plex

"This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1."

Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#178

Post by fao_ »

musage wrote: post #146
throwaway4719 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were you able to read anything?

IBM has always served as a medium between mankind and machine. Between the natural and the engineered. The emotional and rational. The classic and the cutting-edge. Our most important job is to help humanity and technology move forward together. IBM Plex™ brings these relationships to life through letterforms. I was able to read this stuff by first pounding my knee with my fist, then biting so hard on my left hand I…

I vouched for this because it's a worthwhile criticism of a post. For the record, you're shadowbanned, by the way.

Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#179

Post by Semiapies »

rspeer wrote: post #134
Semiapies wrote: post #102

The most offensively poorly-engineered page I've been to in years, all to promote Arial...Sorry, our totally original grotesque font inspired by Helvetica, don't steal! . What is IBM even doing that's worthwhile?

The page is definitely poorly engineered, but the font looks nothing like Arial or Helvetica.

It's poorly engineered enough to keep you from getting to the part where they talk about Plex as a Helvetica alternative. :)

The Arial connection is that Arial has the same origin as a Helvetica alternative. It even shares similar differences to Helvetica, such as the construction of "C".

Re: IBM Plex – A new typeface

#180

Post by chrstphrknwtn »

OliverJones wrote: post #171

A new typeface family of this scope doesn't come along very often. Sure, plenty of new fonts come out, but they contain mostly one to four styles (Roman/Oblique Normal/Bold) and have a special purpose. Two great examples are Matthew Carter's Bell Centennial (for phone book printing) and his Carter Sans (which I use for short chunks of copy). Kris Holmes's and Chuck Bigelow's Lucida is one of the most recent comprehen…

Typefaces of this quality and scope come along all the time. I don't really understand how it's a big deal. Take Source {Sans, Serif, Code) Pro, by Paul D. Hunt for Adobe (also open source); it's arguably a better typeface for user interfaces, and is a much better interpretation of Franklin Gothic and related Morris Fuller Benton gothics (as Plex claims in some areas.)

Also Apple's San Francisco, admittedly missing a serif variant, is a similarly broadly scoped project... of much higher quality.

Both of the above typefaces have fonts with character sets / glyph counts exceeding Plex: Plex Sans Regular - 663, Source Sans Pro Regular - 832, SF Pro Text Regular - 2439.

IBM Plex as an open source font is cool, however I think is of limited use to the broader design community... the formal qualities carried over from Paul Rand's IBM logo make it too idiosyncratic to use outside IBM products.

For IBM, I think it's awesome, especially considering it's replacing Helvetica.

Also, your terminology for figure styles is inaccurate. Proportional means of variable horizontal width (not monospaced), where the alternative is tabular figures (monospaced for tables). Old style figures can be either of the above, however their form is more like lowercase characters (an 'old style') that tend to work better in continuous text.

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