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Making Google Sans Flex

design.google

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Re: Making Google Sans Flex

#81

Post by sorcercode »

guessmyname wrote: post #31

Is there a monospaced version of this font? Pretty much every font I try has one or two things that bug me. I’ve spent the last ten years making my own, first in FontForge, now in Glyphs.app, but it’s incredibly time-consuming. I’ll work on it for a while, then give up for months, delete everything, switch to a different font, use it for a few days, start hating it… and end up back at making my own font again. This c…

i feel your pain my friend. i really do.

i don't have your skills of actually customizing or changing glyphs in fonts directly but i've customized and used scripts to fix glyph characters available as open type features. I've done this for fonts like:

- [Iosevka](https://kau.sh/blog/build-iosevka-font-mac-os/)

- [IBM Plex Mono](https://kau.sh/blog/freeze-alt-char-open-type-font/)

- [Jetbrains Mono](https://github.com/kaushikgopal/JetBrainsMono-KG) (yes, plenty of customization there)

- [Recursive](https://github.com/kaushikgopal/recursive-code-config)

it really is a sickness. a terrible sickness, if you care deeply about fonts. I know you don't care specifically about recommendations, but inevitably i've found myself gravitating to these fonts:

1. Berkeley Mono (paid)

2. SF Mono (walled)

3. Recursive (truly open and legible)

4. Commit Mono

I love the above fonts, but there's a few characters or quirks that drive me bananas on certain days, so inevitably find myself switching between them.

Re: Making Google Sans Flex

#82

Post by sorcercode »

having spent a lot of time on finding the right monospace fonts, one of the things i've noticed, that's particularly important in the context of coding is a visual symmetry.

some fonts individually have beautiful glyps or characters but when you preview them with blocks and blocks of code, there's a quirkiness that throws of that symmetry.

I'll give a few examples:

- Mono Lisa font https://www.monolisa.dev/ (truly gorgeous font)

- Recursive https://www.recursive.design/ (particularly note the casual axis)

I bring this up because Google Sans Code, is super quirky; preview a few characters individually and they look good; put it all together in real code, and it's just not as smooth visually.

Re: Making Google Sans Flex

#83

Post by rozab »

jorvi wrote: post #53
pityJuke wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFA: > Google Sans Mono was created in 2020 to support contexts that needed fixed-width characters for editorial design, at medium and large text sizes. Despite this, it soon got its first big product integration, replacing Roboto Mono in Google Chat. The only problem? Developers hated it. [...] > Recognizing this critical need, a dedicated effort was launched to craft Google Sans Code, a monospaced typeface spe…

What is that abomination of a curly brace. It looks like a squiggle that someone had to jot down in a rush. https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Google+Sans+Code

Curly braces can be really hard to distinguish from parens because they appear in the same sort of place in e.g. JS, and IDEs and highlighters often render them in stupid low-contrast colours. I hate it aesethetically, but I get the usability need.

Re: Making Google Sans Flex

#84

Post by iterance »

mft_ wrote: post #38
TekMol wrote: post #10

Since even after 2 hours nobody is discussing the actual font, let me tell you what comes to my mind when I read anything about Google and design: They got phone design right. I just can't get my head around it that even Apple, which is supposed to be THE design company, is making phones that can't lay on a table without wobbling like a barstool on a crooked floor. It just feels so broken to me. So detrimental to my…

Apple probably has swathes of real-world usability data showing that virtually no-one uses their phone for prolonged periods of time while it's laying down on a hard flat surface. You may be right about the aesthetics (and Lord Jobs may well have agreed with you) but they may have made the tradeoff consciously.

One can say "they probably had data to support it" about virtually any decision. It is not really a defense from critique. It may have been deliberate, but it still feels wrong and bad.

Re: Making Google Sans Flex

#86

Post by jorvi »

maaarghk wrote: post #59
jorvi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is that abomination of a curly brace. It looks like a squiggle that someone had to jot down in a rush. https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Google+Sans+Code

Hmm, my first reaction was the same as yours. But I have quite bad eyesight and looking at the "regular 400 at 16px" example on the page reminded me that I definitely sometimes find myself squinting trying to work out whether a character is a parenthesis or a brace (Droid Sans Mono). So I suppose it'd probably be quite helpful to have a brace that's very visually distinct from parenthesis even if it's not particularl…

Squishing it down to Definitely was too quick with my judgement. Still, it just looks really out of place at bigger font sizes and it makes me wonder if there isn't a more elegant solution out there.

Re: Making Google Sans Flex

#87

Post by [deleted] »

bpev wrote: post #12
TekMol wrote: post #10

Since even after 2 hours nobody is discussing the actual font, let me tell you what comes to my mind when I read anything about Google and design: They got phone design right. I just can't get my head around it that even Apple, which is supposed to be THE design company, is making phones that can't lay on a table without wobbling like a barstool on a crooked floor. It just feels so broken to me. So detrimental to my…

What bugs me most is that Apple DID do this (I still hold that iPhone SE 1 is the goat) and then decided to drop it because it wasn't as profitable.

[deleted]

Re: Making Google Sans Flex

#88

Post by qingcharles »

agos wrote: post #14
planb wrote: post #2

A bit OT: What's up with the mouse pointer on that page? Why on earth would a site that has "design" in it's domain name change my mouse pointer to a finger-sized circle blob on my 4K desktop screen?

it's part of the Material Design 3 branding, for some reason. The original thread for the launch of the design system [1] is full of people baffled by Google making a cursor that lags [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43975352

I just checked Material Design 3, as I use a lot of it in projects, and it still uses Roboto font for everything, so they're not even dogfooding the Sans font there yet, but they'll make us suffer their cursor :)

Re: Making Google Sans Flex

#89

Post by jdboyd »

vbezhenar wrote: post #19
TekMol wrote: post #10

Since even after 2 hours nobody is discussing the actual font, let me tell you what comes to my mind when I read anything about Google and design: They got phone design right. I just can't get my head around it that even Apple, which is supposed to be THE design company, is making phones that can't lay on a table without wobbling like a barstool on a crooked floor. It just feels so broken to me. So detrimental to my…

Original iPhone got design right. I don't think there's a single modern smartphone that I like. My latest favourite smartphone was iPhone 4S. No camera bump. Perfect size, fits well in my hand, operable with one thumb. Perfect display size, enough to present all information I need. Perfectly usable without ugly case.

My favorite phone of all time (based on hand feel and appearance) was the OnePlus One. It had its software problems, but every phone I've held since then has been a disappointment in the hand.

Re: Making Google Sans Flex

#90

Post by Aurornis »

dotancohen wrote: post #80
Aurornis wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just can't get my head around it that even Apple, which is supposed to be THE design company, is making phones that can't lay on a table without wobbling like a barstool on a crooked floor. It just feels so broken to me. So detrimental to my sense of aesthetics. Of all the controversial design choices, I think Apple got this one right. I do not care if my phone wobbles when flat on the desk. I don’t use my phone…

Just so you know, HN in general does not appreciate Reddit rudeness. Your comment would have been fine if not for that last sentence.

Wasn't meant to be rude. More confused, because it's really a unique criteria to pick a phone by.

I think HN mostly doesn't appreciate any defense of Apple or other large companies. I really should stay away from any threads that turn into collections of complaints about big companies because the audience they draw is only interested in negative comments about the companies.

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