181–190 of 205 posts
I’m curious why Ubuntu as a font was included on this list. While it technically is a font, it’s a font shipped with an OS. There is no mention in the article about problems with default fonts shipped with windows or macOS.
> Why are tech companies making custom typefaces? Because they hate me. I disable font smoothing on my machines. Custom typefaces usually have poor hinting, which means they look terrible without smoothing (e.g. inconstant line thickness and inconsistent spacing). The fonts that ship with Windows and Mac OS are wonderfully hinted, and appear crisp and clean without font smoothing. I curse the day web fonts were inven…
> Developing a custom typeface can eliminate the recurring licensing fees that must be paid to foundries. IBM [4] and Netflix [5] claim to save millions of dollars per year by switching from Helvetica to IBM Plex and Gotham to Netflix Sans, respectively. I wasn't aware that these common fonts charged royalties...
I have a (fair warning) rant here that is likely going to ding my HN karma, but here-goes. I work closely with design and I am consistently saddened by the state of the tech industry when design discussions pop up on HN. They almost always devolve into a cesspool of blanket criticism and rejection. "Those designers..." an HN commenter will inevitably say, "...all they care about is making things look pretty." Well, s…
This is one of those times where as a working creative that frequently reads Hacker News I straight up face palm. I have to imagine a lot of these commenters would say the same in regards to any sort of subjective artistic choice that isn't purely optimized for efficiency. I would like to leave you with a quote by Briano Eno from a really good lecture he gave several years ago that I hope can provide a jumping off po…
Actually the content of the article makes this comment slightly unwarranted (unless I'm misreading the tone). The author has described, quite well, on how typography isn't about just subjective artistic choice but largely its functional implications. Oh and there is a reason why a lot of engineering folks have critical opinions about this. Some of us have worked with designers in the past that simply do not take the…
I don't think his/her frustration was with the article, rather with some of the HN comments on the article.
The article suggests that tech companies believe brand is important, and therefore invest in building custom typefaces to save on licensing fees. That doesn't really hold up. The cost of developing a custom typeface can easily run from hundreds of thousands into millions of dollars. It can take a huge amount of time and energy from within the company to commission and direct a large creative project. Typeface licensi…
No-one's arguing the up front investment in creating the font, but instead focusing on the "rent-seeking behaviour" that sees the recurring costs come in anywhere up to $1M a year. Some foundries charge you per pageview and per mobile app developer. There is a company/audience size at which keeping track of pageviews and seat count and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars or perhaps millions per year is significantly more trouble than the initial hurt of commissioning a typeface. At the end of the exercise you can wrap it up as a marketing or branding opportunity and generate a few hundred thousand pageviews and call it a day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My main problem with 16:9 is how obscenely long they are. I use my monitors to do work, not watch movies, so I have a lot more need for vertical real-estate. Tilting them on their side doesn't help, because they're far too narrow that way.
Boy do I want to know what you feel about them ultrawide monitors
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Wow, I didn't even realise Helvetica needed a licence. Nor that its pay per click: "When purchasing your digital ad license, you specify the number of impressions your campaign will require. If you’re uncertain how many impressions you will need, you can purchase a small allotment and true up at the end of the month." https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/helvetica/licenses
This year I happen to work for a client that licenses all of their brand fonts. Licensed and pay-per-use fonts have easily and quickly worked their way up to the top 5 most agitating things to work with. - They track use by embedding a link to the third party font provider, which does a 302 redirect to a file on your server that requires revalidation every load. So while you host the actual file delivered to the clie…
This is one of those times where as a working creative that frequently reads Hacker News I straight up face palm. I have to imagine a lot of these commenters would say the same in regards to any sort of subjective artistic choice that isn't purely optimized for efficiency. I would like to leave you with a quote by Briano Eno from a really good lecture he gave several years ago that I hope can provide a jumping off po…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are good looking open source fonts. So I don't think that's true.
I have yet to see an open source font that comes even close to a professional font like Helvetica.