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Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

public-sans.digital.gov

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Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#41

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

cratermoon wrote: post #24
sneela wrote: post #8

As much as I appreciate the tiny serif for lowercase L and numeral 1 to differentiate l I and 1, I am not the biggest fan of the capital I glyph without the horizontal serifs. It's my biggest design gripe with most sans-serif fonts as it makes it FRUSTRATINGLY difficult to differentiate when looking at words by themselves. Is that lota or Iota? Is that iodestone or lodestone? Both real examples where I fumbled readin…

My full list of ambiguous letters, from https://gajus.com/blog/avoiding-visually-ambiguous-character... - O / 0 - I / l / 1 / 7 - 5 / S - 2 / Z - 8 / B - 6 / G - 9 / q / g

U / V

?

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#42

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

Another generic limited font that isn't solving anything.

No Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, not even Greek letters (poor frats and physicists). I understand it's a product of the US government, but don't they have international relations requiring using characters other than Latin? It's not even a recent font, so you'd think inclusivity was important. So much for the cultural pluralism.

And a site without a character table, which means I had to download the font to check if it's of any use.

Not a great job.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#43

Post by jooize »

sdoering wrote: post #25
101008 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inter or linter?

Feature ss02 Disambiguation (one of many) Alternate glyph set that increases visual difference between similar-looking characters.

Why isn't it the default? :( I'm rarely in control of how a font is used.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#44

Post by thevinter »

sneela wrote: post #8

As much as I appreciate the tiny serif for lowercase L and numeral 1 to differentiate l I and 1, I am not the biggest fan of the capital I glyph without the horizontal serifs. It's my biggest design gripe with most sans-serif fonts as it makes it FRUSTRATINGLY difficult to differentiate when looking at words by themselves. Is that lota or Iota? Is that iodestone or lodestone? Both real examples where I fumbled readin…

I really enjoyed reading through [1] as it gives a lot of insight into what goes into making a font. However I wonder what incentives does IBM have for putting this much work into making it public, accessible and widely used. Wouldn't the ubiquity of the font make it less strong for their brand identity?

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#45

Post by a456463 »

sneela wrote: post #8

As much as I appreciate the tiny serif for lowercase L and numeral 1 to differentiate l I and 1, I am not the biggest fan of the capital I glyph without the horizontal serifs. It's my biggest design gripe with most sans-serif fonts as it makes it FRUSTRATINGLY difficult to differentiate when looking at words by themselves. Is that lota or Iota? Is that iodestone or lodestone? Both real examples where I fumbled readin…

Depending on your phone manufacturer, zFont 3 has been solid for me for setting system wide fonts.

I have Iosevka for everything I can set a custom font to.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#46

Post by PTOB »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #20
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #2

Isn't this from the people who hate Calibri?

That's just the State Department. The federal government is a huge amalgamation of agencies, each with its own set of goals, responsibilities, and quirks. Even down at the local level, I've had a hard time getting the county and the city to agree on who owns the storm drain where the neighborhood connects to the highway.

As a utility designer in my day job who frequents HN for real fun, this comment hits hard.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#47

Post by maigret »

sneela wrote: post #8

As much as I appreciate the tiny serif for lowercase L and numeral 1 to differentiate l I and 1, I am not the biggest fan of the capital I glyph without the horizontal serifs. It's my biggest design gripe with most sans-serif fonts as it makes it FRUSTRATINGLY difficult to differentiate when looking at words by themselves. Is that lota or Iota? Is that iodestone or lodestone? Both real examples where I fumbled readin…

Plex Monospace is great for coding as well.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#48

Post by jeffpersonified »

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #42

Another generic limited font that isn't solving anything. No Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, not even Greek letters (poor frats and physicists). I understand it's a product of the US government, but don't they have international relations requiring using characters other than Latin? It's not even a recent font, so you'd think inclusivity was important. So much for the cultural pluralism. And a site without a character tabl…

Looking forward to the National Design Studio getting it's arms around this
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