Is it just me, or is the design motif that airbnb is adopting in this post fairly similar to dropbox's? I'm also reminded of it in the new gmail interface.
Airbnb's new typeface
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Re: Airbnb's new typeface
#72Is it just me, or is the design motif that airbnb is adopting in this post fairly similar to dropbox's? I'm also reminded of it in the new gmail interface.
and iOS 11
Re: Airbnb's new typeface
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Those look almost identical.
Look again: a, f are pretty different, proportions differ all over (see O), and the author of the tweet clearly hid the tapered & much wider aperture of the Airbnbs e behind the image. Type design is a subtle thing - they are clearly similar, but definitely not identical
That image comes straight from their own announcement: https://airbnb.design/introducing-airbnb-cereal/
Re: Airbnb's new typeface
#74[deleted]
Re: Airbnb's new typeface
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference between a fontset that looks similar and a fontset that solves for all the business requirements can be vast. Cereal appears to be extremely versatile and distinct in a few key areas. You don't need a custom font to distinguish your brand from others, but you probably do if you're going to be using that one typeface for every damn thing in every damn scenario.
I think the fact that this new font has an installed base of 0 counts against it's versatility. I think the fact that a negligible amount of the general public could pick the new font (knowingly, not by guessing) out of a group of 9 other sans fonts counts against it's ability to distinguish the airbnb brand from others.
Installed base is pretty meaningless in a world of web fonts and mobile apps. Everyone will need to download the font once. Not a big deal.
Re: Airbnb's new typeface
#76One of the people involved in the project and answering questions in the article. Happy to answer more questions. We talk about reasoning for Cereal in the article and in my case study too[1]. In large organizations, you often have tens or hundreds of designers, support multiple platforms (ios, android, web(mac, windows, linux) and do ad campaigns around the world. When it comes to typefaces, there really isn't any u…
> If you use different fonts on each platform, the design will be slightly different Oh no, the fonts will look different on different devices! Better commission a custom font. Back in the day, we just accepted that was how the web worked. Jokes aside, I see why you'd want consistency across devices and print. But what's wrong with using an open source typeface, or modifying one for your purposes? > and other brands…
I think people are perhaps downvoting you for the joke but it is a really important question.
A or B?
A - Design a custom typeface in 3 months for a project
B - Use a proven typeface from one of the world's best designers, say Adrian Frutiger's Univers that has been tested and updated for digital medium?
I am a bit old fashioned I guess. There is so much beauty in Didot, Univers or DIN than today's quickly churned out fonts. Technology has changed, but the methodology hasn't and an impeccable font takes a better half of the decade to perfect.
Re: Airbnb's new typeface
#77So... it seems like Netflix Sans plus more open apertures (angled terminals) on letters like "e" and "a" Was Netflix Sans the determined starting point?
Pretty much... The firm that made Netflix Sans made this one too. Looks like they just tweaked it a bit for Airbnb. https://twitter.com/kodform/status/996447044100386816
But they will say - "Oh, fonts are all about subtle things". Yes and no, you're wrong. The search domain for fonts is extremely large and that's why it takes forever, in some cases a decade, to design a really timeless font. Not in 3 months, or worse - modify Netflix Sans and pawn it off as "One of a kind".
Re: Airbnb's new typeface
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Those look almost identical.
Look again: a, f are pretty different, proportions differ all over (see O), and the author of the tweet clearly hid the tapered & much wider aperture of the Airbnbs e behind the image. Type design is a subtle thing - they are clearly similar, but definitely not identical
Type design is a subtle thing is such a wrong statement. Type design is everything - big and small things. This is why it takes a long time to design a timeless font because the search domain is insanely massive.
Let's be honest here, Netflix Sans and Airbnb Cereal are pretty much identical except for the grotesk details.
Re: Airbnb's new typeface
#79I liken this to a hotel that decides to make their own lightbulbs. Or a department store that produces it's own bespoke cash registers. You can't argue that typography is so vital to their business that this is a useful allocation of resources. Obviously, design is important to any company that markets itself in some way. But not every company designs their own typeface (although it seems like it, lately.) Some are s…
This is as much about designers and egoists jerking themselves off in the service of a new 'corporate identity' as it is about a meaningful evolution in image.
The recent HN links to articles on "bullshit jobs" come to mind.
Re: Airbnb's new typeface
#80All I can gather from this is Airbnb has way too many engineers and designers for the amount of actual work there is to go around.
At the end of the day, the day to day engineering problems Airbnb has are not very interesting. It’s a web app that can handle peak traffic with standard technologies (meaning nothing real time, live streaming, or millions of users at once).
I have no clue what most engineers would be doing there day to day.