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Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

public-sans.digital.gov

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Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#241

Post by webmaven »

wongarsu wrote: post #152
sdinsn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Open Sans is under the Apache License while Public Sans should be under Public Domain (although this is a bit unclear and is being debated in the github issues).

While that's a great reason in the US, internationally unless it's under the CC0 or similar the Apache License is actually preferable to Public Domain (assigning things to public domain is not trivial or even possible everywhere)

Assigning new works to the public domain is a pain in many jurisdictions, but if a work originates in the US as public domain, it is in the public domain everywhere.

Note that this doesn't apply to non-USG-made derivative works, though.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#242

Post by GoblinSlayer »

cheerlessbog wrote: post #184
jimktrains2 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because things like blogger and Google groups shouldn't require js to just view text. There is a large, large, enormously large body of work out there that doesn't need JavaScript to achieve its goal like showing text or images, but are more-or-leas broken without JavaScript. That's the tragedy. I don't expect a web app, such as Google maps or Google docs to work without js, but I should be able to read blogs and new…

Why don't you want to run JS, on a site you trust, that has no ads?

What site to trust? MDN once hanged their own browser (granted it can display itself without javascript).

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#243

Post by GoblinSlayer »

Someone1234 wrote: post #212
majewsky wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that same argument, we don't need to worry about accessibility.

Disabled users don't get a choice, that's their lives. People who voluntarily disable a core browser component do. Apples and oranges. You should (and legally need to) worry about accessibility.

When I can't access the page content I read the page source. Disabled users can do the same. There are other workarounds like graphic captcha solvers. There's nothing unsolvable about accessibility, it's just annoying.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#244

Post by traeblain »

beefhash wrote: post #9

I've been wondering why all these new fonts tend to have a strong focus on sans serif font (Fira has no serif variant, Source Serif Pro came later than the other Source fonts). Aren't there a lot of situations (namely, lengthy legal documents) where you'd prefer a serif font before you want a sans serif?

I agree that it's worth looking at all public structures of font selection as well. The Highway department is in this right now. Highway Gothic is old an difficult to read, yet instead of a public domain free to use sign font, they are battling the use of Clearview which comes with a cost because it has a copyright attached to it.

There are multiple needs here and it seems the only action comes from the "sexy" side of things.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface for text or display

#245

Post by kchr »

noelsusman wrote: post #181
phkahler wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Let me know if you have any questions! If this is meant for web sites, I have a question and I ask this on HN a lot. Why does the government need to provide ANY fonts? I have a real problem with websites pushing their own fonts on users. I don't think it's their place. Users should select their preferred font in their own browser. Why would a US government site feel the need to use particular fonts? If this is for…

Users don't select their preferred font in their own browser. That's pretty much the end of it.

Some of us do, and that's probably the best lifehack I've found so far.

Enforcing the same font and size across all pages is ergonomic and does lower the cognitive overhead of recalibrating your sight-reading for every new page you visit. Just my two cents...

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