As much as I appreciate the tiny serif for lowercase L and numeral 1 to differentiate l I and 1, I am not the biggest fan of the capital I glyph without the horizontal serifs. It's my biggest design gripe with most sans-serif fonts as it makes it FRUSTRATINGLY difficult to differentiate when looking at words by themselves.
Is that lota or Iota? Is that iodestone or lodestone? Both real examples where I fumbled reading them -- once in front of a class :)
This is why my favorite sans-serif typeface has been (and will always be) IBM Plex Sans [1]. It's an open font [2]. I have all my laptops and desktops set to using the IBM Plex typefaces, including browser overrides. If only there were a way to do it system-wide on my Android phone...
Marissa Mayer on why Google chose sans-serif fonts for search results:
When I had to make a decision about should the Google results pages be serif or sans-serif, I didn't have enough users to do the split A/B testing and mathematically figure that out, so I ended up reading a lot of research and ultimately finding out that serif fonts are more readable, and sans-serif fonts are more legible.
The serifs create a horizontal rule that guides the eye, so serif fonts are much better when you’re reading long pieces of text. Sans-serif fonts are more legible which means that... when the serifs are removed your eye can spot read a character much better and much more quickly, and as a result it is much better for spot reading. In an activity like search it turns out you want to facilitate spot reading to a much greater degree than reading long prose.
IBM Plex is very good. Recently, I have been enjoying https://rsms.me/inter/ for interfaces a bit more (with ss02 for body and ss02+tnum for tables activated).
Inter is the only libre typeface that has good coverage, and produces readable small text on terrible 80 DPI displays. I've tested probably hundreds of them.
Ah, it initially appeared that the capital I and the lowercase L have identical-looking glyphs. But scrolling down, I see the ss02 and tnum features add noticeable glyphs. Looks like a nice typeface.
I really enjoyed reading through [1] as it gives a lot of insight into what goes into making a font. However I wonder what incentives does IBM have for putting this much work into making it public, accessible and widely used. Wouldn't the ubiquity of the font make it less strong for their brand identity?
Looks nearly identical to Helvetica when I switch back and forth with inspector tool. Some letters are different and there’s some kerning changes but large parts look the same. at least to my untrained eye
I'd say “wasteful” diversity move == woke in this context, not sure if that's milder. Just another distraction thrown at us to keep us at each other's throats. (+ keeping better alignment with the carrot man's branding)
Psychoanalysing politicians aside, serif fonts used to be considered more legible, but that doesn't hold any more that much (e.g. much of research shows that people tend to underestimate familiarity when assessing legibility).
in many problem solving domains, the goal is to solve the problem and go away. it doesn't always work out that way, but compromises are made toward that goal. everybody understands this, a lot of art comes out of working with limitations.
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 number of things to get what you’re looking for here.
A more vague answer I can think of is that it’s preferential and doesn’t matter to most — with designers just being highly particular about preferences, in a way that isn’t really open to objective choice. One font may display slightly better but the other font pairs better with the title font. Or we’ll look for specific issues that I don’t really see in either fonts.
Another generic limited font that isn't solving anything.
No Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, not even Greek letters (poor frats and physicists). I understand it's a product of the US government, but don't they have international relations requiring using characters other than Latin? It's not even a recent font, so you'd think inclusivity was important. So much for the cultural pluralism.
And a site without a character table, which means I had to download the font to check if it's of any use.
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.
Went down a short rabbit hole from this comment and they actually are using a condensed serif font like that on www.whitehouse.gov titles at the moment.
That's just the State Department. The federal government is a huge amalgamation of agencies, each with its own set of goals, responsibilities, and quirks. Even down at the local level, I've had a hard time getting the county and the city to agree on who owns the storm drain where the neighborhood connects to the highway.
As much as I appreciate the tiny serif for lowercase L and numeral 1 to differentiate l I and 1, I am not the biggest fan of the capital I glyph without the horizontal serifs. It's my biggest design gripe with most sans-serif fonts as it makes it FRUSTRATINGLY difficult to differentiate when looking at words by themselves.
Is that lota or Iota? Is that iodestone or lodestone? Both real examples where I fumbled reading them -- once in front of a class :)
This is why my favorite sans-serif typeface has been (and will always be) IBM Plex Sans [1]. It's an open font [2]. I have all my laptops and desktops set to using the IBM Plex typefaces, including browser overrides. If only there were a way to do it system-wide on my Android phone...
[1]: https://www.ibm.com/plex/
[2]: https://github.com/IBM/plex/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
Preview: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/IBM+Plex+Sans?preview.text...
Marissa Mayer on why Google chose sans-serif fonts for search results:
When I had to make a decision about should the Google results pages be serif or sans-serif, I didn't have enough users to do the split A/B testing and mathematically figure that out, so I ended up reading a lot of research and ultimately finding out that serif fonts are more readable, and sans-serif fonts are more legible.
The serifs create a horizontal rule that guides the eye, so serif fonts are much better when you’re reading long pieces of text. Sans-serif fonts are more legible which means that... when the serifs are removed your eye can spot read a character much better and much more quickly, and as a result it is much better for spot reading. In an activity like search it turns out you want to facilitate spot reading to a much greater degree than reading long prose.
Here's the 2006 talk: https://stvp.stanford.edu/podcasts/nine-lessons-learned-abou...
IBM Plex is very good. Recently, I have been enjoying https://rsms.me/inter/ for interfaces a bit more (with ss02 for body and ss02+tnum for tables activated).
Inter is the only libre typeface that has good coverage, and produces readable small text on terrible 80 DPI displays. I've tested probably hundreds of them.
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.
Oh, is that why everyone uses it? I just assumed people wanted knockoff San Francisco on purpose
Ah, it initially appeared that the capital I and the lowercase L have identical-looking glyphs. But scrolling down, I see the ss02 and tnum features add noticeable glyphs. Looks like a nice typeface.
Inter or linter?
Feature ss02 Disambiguation (one of many)
Alternate glyph set that increases visual difference between similar-looking characters.
Why isn't it the default? :( I'm rarely in control of how a font is used.
Inter has also become my default.
Nice. Inter even has "U+1E9E" "Latin Capital Letter Sharp S" and two lower case sharp s variants as well.
Is U+1E9E used for anything besides ALLCAPS text?
Shoutout to Atkinson Hyperlegible Next, designed for the Braille Institut having excellent glyph differentiation ("Next" with variable weight)
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Atkinson+Hyperlegible+Next
I'm extremely picky and Atkinson Hyperlegible was my favorite variable-width font. Never knew there's a "Next", so +
This is what I switch to whenever a default font annoys me because of poor glyph differentiation. It's what it says on the tin.
Likewise the absence of a stroke through the zero. Without context, for example in a Wifi password, indistinguishable from uppercase letter O.
I really enjoyed reading through [1] as it gives a lot of insight into what goes into making a font. However I wonder what incentives does IBM have for putting this much work into making it public, accessible and widely used. Wouldn't the ubiquity of the font make it less strong for their brand identity?
It says "IBM" in the name so I'm actually often reminded of the company via seeing the font in the wild.
And somehow they did seem to capture a distinctive IBM vibe when designing it, whilst still making it general enough to be used by everyone else
Depending on your phone manufacturer, zFont 3 has been solid for me for setting system wide fonts.
I have Iosevka for everything I can set a custom font to.
Plex Monospace is great for coding as well.
My full list of ambiguous letters, from https://gajus.com/blog/avoiding-visually-ambiguous-character...
- O / 0 - I / l / 1 / 7 - 5 / S - 2 / Z - 8 / B - 6 / G - 9 / q / g
O / D can also be an issue with some fonts.
U / V
?
Looks nearly identical to Helvetica when I switch back and forth with inspector tool. Some letters are different and there’s some kerning changes but large parts look the same. at least to my untrained eye
anything on digital.gov is at best on life support given 18F was disbanded and much of the government digital service efforts have been neglected
The fonts are open and on github
The Secretary of State recently decreed that sans serif fonts were woke and mandated all communications use Times New Roman.
God, I was so hopeful that you were joking but I guess I should know better by now.
Times New Roman is the worst serif font they could have picked.
To be fair, it's replacing Calibri, so it's still an improvement. We should just use Garamond or Caslon for everything, but that'll never happen. :(
Oh hell no. At least pick Crimson Pro or something that actually looks nice. Microsoft is not where you should be looking for good typography.
I thought it was a joke, then I checked.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/10/trump-times-...
The quote is milder and the "woke" bit was added by others, but the context is essentially correct.
In an interview, the font's creator took it as a compliment and was a good sport about it.
I'd say “wasteful” diversity move == woke in this context, not sure if that's milder. Just another distraction thrown at us to keep us at each other's throats. (+ keeping better alignment with the carrot man's branding)
Psychoanalysing politicians aside, serif fonts used to be considered more legible, but that doesn't hold any more that much (e.g. much of research shows that people tend to underestimate familiarity when assessing legibility).
I doubt they got the memo.
Nifty... looks pretty nice.
related: USWDS React Component Library https://github.com/trussworks/react-uswds
Previous discussion 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19607371
What does "strong" mean here? Doesn't it contradict "neutral"?
Anyway, the "c" and "e" are closing in too much.
Switzerland is strong and neutral. Pardon my little joke, as I have lots of Swiss friends. I hear ya.
Masculine, not-woke (asleep), but not like a sleepy Joe, like a toddler who takes a nap.
No way fonts isn't a solved problem by now.
This is like saying design is a solved problem.
Is it not? Designers keep designing but everyone says they prefer Windows XP.
in many problem solving domains, the goal is to solve the problem and go away. it doesn't always work out that way, but compromises are made toward that goal. everybody understands this, a lot of art comes out of working with limitations.
Worse. It’s like saying ART is a solved problem.
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 number of things to get what you’re looking for here.
A more vague answer I can think of is that it’s preferential and doesn’t matter to most — with designers just being highly particular about preferences, in a way that isn’t really open to objective choice. One font may display slightly better but the other font pairs better with the title font. Or we’ll look for specific issues that I don’t really see in either fonts.
I must say it's very pleasant. Much better than a lot of the fonts I see on the web these days.
I want to like it but I feel like it neuters everything I like about Franklin Gothic/Libre Franklin.
For some reason I always thought that Plus Jakarta Sans was forked from on Public Sans.
<https://tokotype.github.io/plusjakarta-sans/>
Which for some other reason always makes me think of the book The Jakarta Method:
<https://www.librarything.com/work/24301785/t/The-Jakarta-Met...>
Weirdly, it reminds me of Aptos, the new default font in Microsoft products.
To clarify, it is the default font for office documents, not the default UI font.
I must say I like Libre Franklin (which they compare it to in the github repo) better, especially the rounded vertices.
Another generic limited font that isn't solving anything.
No Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, not even Greek letters (poor frats and physicists). I understand it's a product of the US government, but don't they have international relations requiring using characters other than Latin? It's not even a recent font, so you'd think inclusivity was important. So much for the cultural pluralism.
And a site without a character table, which means I had to download the font to check if it's of any use.
Not a great job.
Looking forward to the National Design Studio getting it's arms around this
Isn't this from the people who hate Calibri?
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
Oh it's the "transhumanist serif" every AI startup uses now.
Color me... unperplexed
Went down a short rabbit hole from this comment and they actually are using a condensed serif font like that on www.whitehouse.gov titles at the moment.
No, this was a project by 18F and the U.S. Web Design group that debued several years back.
Funnily enough, if you Google "Calibri", the page itself is in Calibri. I've never seen that happen for any other font.
It also works for Open Sans, on my Linux system at least. Probably only works for fonts that are installed and/or can be licensed for this.
This predates the Calibri-Times debacle by quite a few years.
That's just the State Department. The federal government is a huge amalgamation of agencies, each with its own set of goals, responsibilities, and quirks. Even down at the local level, I've had a hard time getting the county and the city to agree on who owns the storm drain where the neighborhood connects to the highway.
As a utility designer in my day job who frequents HN for real fun, this comment hits hard.
why is the federal government using tax dollars to develop fonts?