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Helvetica Now Variable

monotype.com

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Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#51

Post by Pentamerous »

jstx1 wrote: post #39

Do you genuinely notice differences between fonts? I have a general sense of monospaced vs proportional and serif vs sans-serif. Past that it's mostly all the same to me and I'm kind of impressed that people pay so much attention to the tiny details (and maybe questioning whether they really do or whether fonts are kind of like wine tasting).

They do. As fast as I can look at a picture of a cat or a dog and tell you which of those animals it is, when my husband sees a font he immediatly knows which font it is. I find it fascinating. He is also my go to person when I choose fonts because he always give critiques I would never think of.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#52

Post by Santosh83 »

traceroute66 wrote: post #44
flowerlad wrote: post #9

Fantastic font, now infinitely malleable! Unfortunately it is expensive, and you can't just buy it and use it, you have to renew the license annually. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now-variable?tab... And my use case isn't even covered: include in a web application that will be downloaded and installed by customers. My current choice is OpenSans https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans

I thought best-practice for web apps was to use system fonts ? e.g. along the lines blogged here[1] [1] https://booking.design/implementing-system-fonts-on-booking-...

CSSWG is trying to standardise ui-serif, ui-sans-serif, ui-monospace and so on. System fonts are a good option if you don't mind sacrificing brand identity for performance. But fonts are not the main causes of latency and lag in most sites these days. The main culprits are tons of ads, tracking scripts and images.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#53

Post by SippinLean »

todd3834 wrote: post #18

Am I crazy for expecting fonts to be free? There are so many good options that I can use without paying a license fee. I can't imagine liking the tiny differences in a font so much that I would get myself locked into a yearly licensing fee.

Yes, the good ones require a lot of hard work by designers and producers.

Where else can you find a sans-serif battle-tested over a century that's variable, for free?

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#54

Post by philjackson »

switz wrote: post #33
todd3834 wrote: post #18

Am I crazy for expecting fonts to be free? There are so many good options that I can use without paying a license fee. I can't imagine liking the tiny differences in a font so much that I would get myself locked into a yearly licensing fee.

Fonts are a herculean effort and a dazzling display of creativity and taste. The fee for a good font is, generally speaking, nominal. Use free fonts if you want, but a good font is worth paying for. You are "crazy"[0] for expecting them to be free. But if you don't want to use a paid font, that's totally within your prerogative. [0] though I prefer not to use that word, perhaps a better word would be 'entitled'

> [0] though I prefer not to use that word, perhaps a better word would be 'entitled'

Then why not use that word?

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#55

Post by krapht »

Santosh83 wrote: post #32
todd3834 wrote: post #18

Am I crazy for expecting fonts to be free? There are so many good options that I can use without paying a license fee. I can't imagine liking the tiny differences in a font so much that I would get myself locked into a yearly licensing fee.

Paying for products per se is not a problem. What always becomes a problem are stuff like unfair pricing, surge pricing, extortionate rates and fees backed up by monopoly/DRM/regulations, recurring subscriptions or ever increasing rates for the same product with no meaningful improvement and so on. Fonts can be sold but pricing calculated per page view and device just strikes me as a bit too much. Why not just sell t…

Why are so many formerly desktop applications sold individually per major version now sold as subscription services delivered online through the browser?

The answer is the same.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#56

Post by da_chicken »

flowerlad wrote: post #36
croes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Print fonts are copyrightable.

In the United States, the shapes of typefaces are not eligible for copyright. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...

Ah, so that's how knock-off fonts work. You can reproduce essentially the same output (the typeface) as long as the code that produces it is distinct (the font).

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#57

Post by stimpson_j_cat »

flowerlad wrote: post #9

Fantastic font, now infinitely malleable! Unfortunately it is expensive, and you can't just buy it and use it, you have to renew the license annually. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now-variable?tab... And my use case isn't even covered: include in a web application that will be downloaded and installed by customers. My current choice is OpenSans https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans

> you can't just buy it and use it, you have to renew the license annually

The page you linked to says otherwise ("License: Pay Once"). In some cases the license is annual.

> include in a web application that will be downloaded and installed by customers

The page you linked to also includes this as a licensing option, no? ("App: for embedding in mobile applications")

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#58

Post by Santosh83 »

alberth wrote: post #46
mikedc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, "typefaces", ie. the shapes of the letters, generally are not. "Fonts", ie. the programs that draw the letters, are copyrighted as software, as something of a workaround. For more reading on the history here Typographica has a succinct overview[0]. [0] https://typographica.org/on-typography/copyright-protection-...

Silly question, so how do type foundries prevent someone from literally copying the TTF, WOFF, EOT files - and then rebrand a font as their own? Will the bits/bytes of a TTF be different if two people produced identically the exact same shape of the letters? EDIT: let me clarify a bit. The GP said that the shape of the letters is not copyrighted in the US. Which implies to me that if Helvetica has the exact shape of…

Licenses are generally sold to medium sized to large companies who would not risk legal action pursuing what you suggest. There is money to spread around anyway. Fonts and branding are nothing compared to the upkeep for C-level execs.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#59

Post by stimpson_j_cat »

da_chicken wrote: post #14
flowerlad wrote: post #9

Fantastic font, now infinitely malleable! Unfortunately it is expensive, and you can't just buy it and use it, you have to renew the license annually. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now-variable?tab... And my use case isn't even covered: include in a web application that will be downloaded and installed by customers. My current choice is OpenSans https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans

> Unfortunately it is expensive, and you can't just buy it and use it, you have to renew the license annually. Not even that. If you want it for a web page you have to pay in blocks of page views. In my mind that moves it from "eh" to "LOL no". These are licensing terms for people who want the name.

That's a standard practice for a lot of webfont vendors isn't it? I know it was for Typekit/Adobe Fonts (which requires a Creative Cloud subscription).

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#60

Post by liminal »

jstx1 wrote: post #39

Do you genuinely notice differences between fonts? I have a general sense of monospaced vs proportional and serif vs sans-serif. Past that it's mostly all the same to me and I'm kind of impressed that people pay so much attention to the tiny details (and maybe questioning whether they really do or whether fonts are kind of like wine tasting).

Yes! Fonts make a huge difference in the impression a piece of text will make. Just consider that italics and bold have been necessary features of word processors since pretty much the beginning. For an even more subtle example, Twitter's new font is a very plain sans serif, but people are complaining of headaches from reading it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28156094
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