I'm usually terrible at noticing typefaces (especially when developing to a design). But now this has been pointed out to me, I can't not see it. It's tricky to focus on and I can see why people are finding it troublesome...
Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
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Re: Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
#42To anyone saying "Users will complain about anything", I'm on a Windows desktop and this is honestly the most unpleasant reading experience I've had on any big website in recent memory. There seems to be an issue with the OS antialiasing that is rendering characters slightly blurry to feel it's not focused, further straining my eyes. Seems to have only been tested on Bay Area Apple devices.
I have the newest most expensive (well, not the most expensive, but close) M1 MacBook and it's the same. It's weird how unpleasant it is. The new font seems rather nice, and I would not even notice it looks different, but... it really hurts to look at.
Agreed. You can't blame this on testing only on Macs, because it's bad on my Mac too.
Re: Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
#43Not every thing on the Internet needs its own font. (I say as the former head of a type foundry.)
Why not try, though? First and foremost, I think it's a good thing that designers are getting work. I also think huge "for fun" webapps are in a particularly advantageous place when it comes to pushing the boundaries of design, mostly because they have people on hand who can do it and who probably want to do it. Next, it's really a low risk preposition.
Maybe Office 365 needs to be conservative with fonts. Twitter can push boundaries, though. I wish they'd push boundaries more, ala Bertone or Memphis Group, but I guess the risks are larger the more you push the boundaries.
Re: Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
#44More tweet-based journalism. Isn't there a better article somewhere that actually shows the font?
As you said, it is tweet-based. About a font on Twitter. The Tweets in the article show the font.
Re: Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the newest most expensive (well, not the most expensive, but close) M1 MacBook and it's the same. It's weird how unpleasant it is. The new font seems rather nice, and I would not even notice it looks different, but... it really hurts to look at.
Agreed. You can't blame this on testing only on Macs, because it's bad on my Mac too.
It's bad on Mac, it's bad on Windows. What the hell did they use to develop and test this where it looked good?
Re: Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
#46More tweet-based journalism. Isn't there a better article somewhere that actually shows the font?
As you said, it is tweet-based. About a font on Twitter. The Tweets in the article show the font.
Must depend on your device as the tweets are using Proxima Nova for me.
edit: although if I click into the tweets and view them on Twitter, it then uses Chirp.
Re: Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
#47The font rendering feels broken on my Windows machine to me. Like the designer only tested it on a Mac and didn't account for how Windows renders fonts differently.
Re: Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
#48No screenshot of what new fonts look like, I don't have Twitter so cannot see it on twitter.com. It wants me to sign up.
View any random account. Here's one: https://twitter.com/twitter
I stared it for a good minute thinking maybe I wasn't being served the new font, but no, it's just so similar to Helvetica (Roman) that I have to deliberately look for the differences to tell. I compared Chirp and Helvetica side by side and the only significant differences in the characters themselves are in the upper case J, Q, and R, then lower case g and the numeral 2.
Am I missing something or is it just that I go to twitter so seldom that I assumed it was always Helvetica?
Edit: it seems it's not the font itself, but rather something going on with the rendering making it blurrier for some people than the previous typeface.
Re: Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
#49The text of this article is 50% a repeat of the embedded tweets. It’s like high schoolers gaming word counts have taken over publishing.
I can't stand this "twitter hates x" trend where articles use a handful of embedded tweets to make their case, but then you look at the engagement on those tweets and they have like 2 likes. Good job, you found a couple of random people on twitter talking to themselves. You can do that for any opinion under the sun. Maybe people really do hate the font, but use some real numbers to make your case, not this anecdotal…
Same here. It's like all those sensationalist political / culture war articles that frame some out-there fringe idea as a mainstream agenda (e.g. "Curry considered racist"). Then you actually read past the headline, and it turns out some unknown blogger or tweeter was just looking for attention.
Anyone going purely off of headlines, and taking them at face value, would have an absolutely bizarre worldview by now.
Re: Twitter's new font, Chirp, is apparently giving some users headaches
#50I'm one of those with headache, on my samsung s10e it seems blurred, I have to concentrate to read it well.