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Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

public-sans.digital.gov

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Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#81

Post by designerarvid »

airstrike wrote: post #58
deaux wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't Inter been the default tech font for the last 5 years or so by virtue of being the default font in Figma? The Times New Roman of UI.

I think you have it the other way around. It's not used because it's the default font in Figma. It's the fact that it's the best modern alternative to Helvetica, making it universally useful and therefore the default in Figma. Incidentally, I'll forever mourn that the designers didn't choose to go with a glyph for "1" that is closer to the one in Helvetica.

Inter is the default in Figma because the first designer at Figma was the guy who created it.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#82

Post by tracker1 »

danvayn wrote: post #33
skibidithink wrote: post #9

Are there any designers here who can explain when the differences between Public Sans and Roboto Sans and when to use one or the other?

I don’t think it’s that straightforward to answer that. They’re both body fonts. Public Sans is a bit wider (as it isn’t geometric) and roboto seems a bit thicker. Besides these bits which can be worked around, they’re functionally too similar. Maybe you’d prefer to use Public Sans because it’s less condensed which works well for readability of smaller fonts that would be in a body of text. But you can just adjust a…

I'd say Public Sans is definitely a bit more readable for me (some vision impairment). Was kind of hard to tell why I liked it so much first looking at it today.. I saw a comparison of it with a few other Serif fonts and it's definitely the one I like the most visually myself. Will probably switch to using it moving forward over Roboto Sans, which has been my go to for nearly a decade.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#83

Post by sollewitt »

bbx wrote: post #49
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #2

Isn't this from the people who hate Calibri?

Funnily enough, if you Google "Calibri", the page itself is in Calibri. I've never seen that happen for any other font.

It’s an Easter egg, also for Times New Roman and a few others.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#84

Post by tracker1 »

Muromec wrote: post #56
1f60c wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, looks like it was started late in Obama's second term. As for the current guys, they would probably use Instrument Serif for body text if they could.

I googled Instrument Serif and google fonts page is telling me something with it's choice of lorem ipsum https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Instrument+Serif

I don't hate it.. it's a bit too condensed for my taste though.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#86

Post by tracker1 »

qoez wrote: post #52

No way fonts isn't a solved problem by now.

There are a lot of very strong opinions on relatively minor variances. I really like this font, but apparently it isn't nearly as complete as some alternatives.

I've tended towards fonts that I just find readable at the relatively small sizes most sites tend to use. I like Roboto a lot, I like this slightly more... I'm not as big on the Libre Franklin it's also being compared to. It's really personal and some people care more or less than others depending on their needs, and even visibility concerns.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#87

Post by notepad0x90 »

Didn't they throw a fit over Calibri being "woke" or something recently? I hope this department got a clearance from the whitehouse on how woke it feels. Apparently, the previous admin worded it using terms like "inclusive" (of the visually impaired, adhd,etc..) and that was somehow "woke". I wonder if this font is a direct consequence of that.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#89

Post by 6SixTy »

paulvnickerson wrote: post #50

why is the federal government using tax dollars to develop fonts?

$1M to the US Government is like dropping pennies, less than that actually. By the READMEs, this font is actually a modification to another font and more sleuthing revealed that the author actually worked on this in his spare time.

Re: Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

#90

Post by mattnewton »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #87

Didn't they throw a fit over Calibri being "woke" or something recently? I hope this department got a clearance from the whitehouse on how woke it feels. Apparently, the previous admin worded it using terms like "inclusive" (of the visually impaired, adhd,etc..) and that was somehow "woke". I wonder if this font is a direct consequence of that.

This font was created as part of the US digital service during the second Obama administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Web_Design_System
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