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Airbnb's new typeface

airbnb.design

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Re: Airbnb's new typeface

#151

Post by aphextron »

dawhizkid wrote: post #80

All 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 doi…

This is basically what I’ve gathered from spending time inside their main HQ as well. A bunch of insanely overpaid people drinking free beer and doing absolutely nothing interesting while supporting a Rails app.

Re: Airbnb's new typeface

#152

Post by reuben364 »

tomelders wrote: post #147
dawhizkid wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but are you really citing the problem of “not double booking” properties as one of the reasons Airbnb needs to hire an army of web developers? “How many developers does it take to design a reservations schema?” I would put open source projects like the ones you’ve mentioned as more evidence Airbnb has too many idle engineers. I think even Google uses Tableau for their BI analytics stack. There’s not necessarily…

Hmmm, then one has to wonder, how did AirBnb become so successful while so many others have failed? It's a mystery that will tease our imaginations until the end of time no doubt. If only there were some clue, some window into their company and culture that could help us explain this puzzle? But yeah, seriously, how hard can it be to make AirBnb? It's just a couple of tables in a database, a HTML form and a jQuery im…

That's a strawman. No one has stated that the success of AirBnB is easy to replicate, nor that a system of equal functionality is easy to create.

Re: Airbnb's new typeface

#153

Post by theoh »

dawhizkid wrote: post #80

All 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 doi…

The font was commissioned from Dalton Maag, who specialize in this kind of work (as the second highest ranked comment notes). So if anything it is money that is being wasted, not employee time.

Re: Airbnb's new typeface

#154

Post by jrs95 »

beatboxrevival wrote: post #62
jrs95 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it's essentially Netflix Sans with enough changes to be different IP

Typefaces can't be protected, at least in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...

That's kind of amusing. So in theory someone could just copy their typeface and rewrite the "font" and publish it for free. That makes the entire thing seem even more pointless -- if one guy can copy Operator Mono (I found at least one clone of that font as soon as I searched for it on Google) what is the point of paying some design firm to make you damn near the same thing as Netflix Sans when you could just rip it off yourself?

Re: Airbnb's new typeface

#155

Post by lioeters »

fermienrico wrote: post #78
krsdcbl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was curious if you used the word "grotesk" as a technical term in type design, like how "gothic" (apparently) has typographic meaning. I looked it up, and learned that "grotesque" is a class/category of sans-serif fonts.

Re-reading your last sentence, you probably meant in a general way, as in "grotesque: characterized by ludicrous or incongruous distortion; outlandish or bizarre".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-serif#Classification

Edit: Oh, here's a great comment from someone who worked on the font, with a mention of "Grotesque" san-serif.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17075836#17080855

Re: Airbnb's new typeface

#157

Post by fermienrico »

lioeters wrote: post #155
fermienrico wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was curious if you used the word "grotesk" as a technical term in type design, like how "gothic" (apparently) has typographic meaning. I looked it up, and learned that "grotesque" is a class/category of sans-serif fonts. Re-reading your last sentence, you probably meant in a general way, as in "grotesque: characterized by ludicrous or incongruous distortion; outlandish or bizarre". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San…

I meant it in a typographical sense.

Re: Airbnb's new typeface

#158

Post by brailsafe »

enra wrote: post #136
brailsafe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats to your team on creating what looks like a very versatile font. I can appreciate the benefits that creating a custom font will have. One of the other commenters mentioned that AirBnB's Cereal and Netflix Sans (both overseen by Dalton Maag) are almost identical. Could you speak to the differences, technical or otherwise between the results and how that relates to differentiating the brand aesthetic?

I wasn't part of the Netflix Sans or have insight into the process or have access to their fonts, so cannot really speak to the differences per say. I can say that modern(since 15th century) latin based type, is usually based one of the traditional type families: Humanist (Venetian pen-writing, eg. Palantino), Grotesques (sans-serifs) and Neo-grotesques (more geometric grotesques like Helvetica). In terms of creating…

This is a brilliant answer, and not terribly far from what I was expecting. Thanks for taking the time.

Do you have any specific insight into where testing didn't succeed, or where other typefaces reached the limits of your constraints before deciding to go this route? For example, if a low-res phone screen couldn't legibly display type at small sizes.

Re: Airbnb's new typeface

#159

Post by krn »

parenthephobia wrote: post #150
krn wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there is a difference what a VC-funded startup should be burning money on. It's not a public company, yet.

Whilst "what a VC-funded startup should be burning money on" is something that the investors should have input on, I don't think random people on the Internet get to be the gatekeepers for what a company is allowed to do with their investors' money.

It's not about being allowed or disallowed. It's about having priorities as a startup. And every random person on the Internet has the right to say that his priorities at this stage would be very different.

Re: Airbnb's new typeface

#160

Post by ksk »

briandear wrote: post #131
baal232 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you presume to say what AirBnB "should not" do? You get to run your business according to your priorities, as does AirBnB's CEO. If we followed your reasoning, most CEOs would be immune from criticism. I, on the other hand, have a different rule of thumb. If a company does something in public, it's fair game for the public to talk about it. >You could use this logic to criticize basically any company expendi…

Their core business is making two private parties feel good enough about each other in order to conducts a higher value transaction. Friendliness, trust, professionalism are all part of the image AirBnB wants to convey to guests and hosts. I would say that a font is extremely a part of their core business as anything that even slightly improves the feeling of confidence you want your customers to have when they book…

The problem is you can apply your logic to anything and any business. I bet having a nice comfortable pencil makes the experience of filling out a form better too. Or maybe businesses should design their own paint since the texture of the paint is the first thing that anyone notices when entering a an office room, and having a nice perfect personal paint that minimizes speculars is ideal for a friendly atmosphere. Or maybe Enterprise should design their own leather since car rental is so so personal, and the feel of the leather enhances everything about renting a car.. or maybe they should make their own tires since tires affect the entire experience so much.. and on and on...

Is a font the number one thing? Number two? number three? Or maybe number 62? Ofcource a company is "allowed" to do whatever they want. I don't see why anyone should be forced to take their actions seriously.

>Design matters and it matters a hell of a lot when you are dealing with the “normal” public.

Sure it matters, just like everything matters, just not to the degree that designers think it does. Like I said in another post about UX - I'd bet half a paycheck that the only people who really really care about the new "cool" designs are (1) Bosses looking to take credit (2) Bored tech writers looking for content (3) UX Peers looking for validation (4) Tech people looking for new toys.

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