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Helvetica Now Variable

monotype.com

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191–197 of 197 posts

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#191

Post by ZeikJT »

jstummbillig wrote: post #101
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.

Well, no, it's realistic. I find myself going to Google Fonts more and more these days, even for serious brand work. This is mostly due to Google and a few other companies sponsoring the making of great open fonts. However, the free market situation is pretty yikes. A few giants and a bunch of boutique foundries (check out https://klim.co.nz/ ) still make it work, but the open source monetisation problem that we find…

I think there's still some spaces where new fonts thrive: company branding, movies, and television.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#192

Post by ZeikJT »

LegitShady wrote: post #74
krapht wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

greed and overreach? lack of alternatives? lock in?

Just the first, money.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#196

Post by Seirdy »

dylan604 wrote: post #189
Seirdy wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a big difference between shipping a 192px PNG/WebP image and shipping a custom font. Most of the criticisms I mentioned don't apply to something as small and safe as a logo. Small PNGs with good alt text are not as unsafe, large, and brittle as third party fonts. You're not responding to what I said; you're responding to a caricature of what you imagine me to be like. Doing so derails the discussion. Cosmeti…

I'm so glad there are people that are much more creative than you would have the world be, and I'm so glad there is push back on the creatives from just going nuts. However, I never want to live in a world where you're the winning voice in website design. So boring because of some electrons getting annoyed? Good text treatments lend itself to good graphic design. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean the rest o…

1. Remote fonts, first or third party, are still a massive attack surface. This is why the Tor Browser's Torbutton disables them.

2. Non-default fonts for text still create a suboptimal experience for users with reading impairments like dyslexia who could benefit from using their preferred fonts in place of sans/serif without breaking pages that need icon fonts.

> Just because you don't like it doesn't mean the rest of the world should suffer without it.

By the same token, just because your design/marketing departments think a design "pops" doesn't mean that disadvantaged users should have to suffer by your personal preferences. People who need privacy (e.g tor users who disable js/JIT/SVG/any non-whitelisted fonts), extra a11y (changing default colors, fonts, layouts), and extra bandwidth constraints (satellite internet with high packet loss) exist too, and excessive web design frequently gets these people shafted.

I'm not saying that the world needs to change for my personal preferences; I'm saying that the world needs to cater less to personal preferences and more towards people's needs. People who make up a disadvantaged minority of users need disproportionate levels of accommodation, and their needs are more important than graphic design.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#197

Post by grkvlt »

Seirdy wrote: post #196
dylan604 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so glad there are people that are much more creative than you would have the world be, and I'm so glad there is push back on the creatives from just going nuts. However, I never want to live in a world where you're the winning voice in website design. So boring because of some electrons getting annoyed? Good text treatments lend itself to good graphic design. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean the rest o…

1. Remote fonts, first or third party, are still a massive attack surface. This is why the Tor Browser's Torbutton disables them. 2. Non-default fonts for text still create a suboptimal experience for users with reading impairments like dyslexia who could benefit from using their preferred fonts in place of sans/serif without breaking pages that need icon fonts. > Just because you don't like it doesn't mean the rest…

but, you can do both, right? that's what alternative text titles and descriptions of images are for, and the font is used to render test that has already been downloaded as utf-8/ascii/whatever characters making up the content of the html tags in the document. lynx exists. screen readers for the blind exist. that's no reason to try and downgrade the aesthetic experience for everyone else. i mean, i remember usenet and gopher, the web and html are just better, prettier, nicer to look at - a well laid out and designed page of content makes me happy, assuming the content is something i'm interested in, but even that isn't nescessary sometimes. and sure, i'm sad for vision impaired people who can't experience that, and sites that don't provide accessible versions of their content are bad and wrong, of course - but that doesn't mean i need to dilute my own experience to match. it'd be like banning people from going hill-walking because wheelchair users can't participate. the correct response it to try and work out how to include and enable access foir the wheelchair users without destroying the experience for everyone else - put in a cable car or something, i don't know. so yeah, i agree with your sentiments in the last two paragraphs above, i just think there's a better way to solve that problem - upgrade everyone's experience.
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