the formality slider (play with it at the google fonts page linked in the article[0]) is genuinely one of the coolest uses of a variable font axis i've seen in recent memory. it feels like we're witnessing the slow and steady vindication of metafont.
That’s the coolest thing!And “bounce” slider. What a time to be alive…
I wonder if there are more fonts like that with special adjustments.
Still waiting for technology to allow handwritten font with true randomness.
One of my favourite fonts is Recursive[0]. It has even more variable axes than Shantell Sans: apart from the usual weight and slant it also has a "Casual" axis as well as "Monospace" (which is continuous from fully proportional to fully monospace). I use Recursive as my terminal font, and in many other places. You can also play with it on Google Fonts[1].
The font is great. What I miss is a step forward in technology: variable glyphs. The feeling of reading a handwritten text is lost when the letters have always the same shape. If it were possible to add 5-6 little variations for each letter and alternate them randomly, it would be awesome.
The parallels to comic sans are so obvious that first thing I did in the article is Ctrl-F "comic", because my first thought was: how much further has this taken the concept.
The distribution of mentions of Comic Sans in the article is revealing: there are a bunch of mentions at around the 30% mark (in which they acknowledge the obvious heritage), and then barely after that. This font really does go further. Beautiful!
I was also really hoping for a mino version. I have used comic-sans-inspired monospaced fonts for some time for coding, because I think they are extremely readable. This font is so beautiful, I’d really love to see it in my terminal
I am not dyslexic, but the roboto example also highlighted a very stark difference in readability for me! Especially after having gotten used to shantell sans reading up to that point, the roboto felt nigh-unreadable.
A website could offer accessibility features, such as dark mode or dyslexia font. These could be subtle, or very obvious, depending on your target group. Large amounts of texts (e.g. a testimonial) could be a valid example. If you go for site-wide, you got consistency. If you'd apply it on h1-3 you'd put emphasis on the titles.
It'd be great if say Mozilla Firefox included this font natively (for the app itself). Then again, the default is currently Times New Roman...
the formality slider (play with it at the google fonts page linked in the article[0]) is genuinely one of the coolest uses of a variable font axis i've seen in recent memory. it feels like we're witnessing the slow and steady vindication of metafont.
[0] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Shantell+Sans
That’s the coolest thing!And “bounce” slider. What a time to be alive… I wonder if there are more fonts like that with special adjustments. Still waiting for technology to allow handwritten font with true randomness.
One of my favourite fonts is Recursive[0]. It has even more variable axes than Shantell Sans: apart from the usual weight and slant it also has a "Casual" axis as well as "Monospace" (which is continuous from fully proportional to fully monospace). I use Recursive as my terminal font, and in many other places. You can also play with it on Google Fonts[1].
[0]: https://www.recursive.design/
[1]: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Recursive
The font is great. What I miss is a step forward in technology: variable glyphs. The feeling of reading a handwritten text is lost when the letters have always the same shape. If it were possible to add 5-6 little variations for each letter and alternate them randomly, it would be awesome.
Wow somehow I've never come across this font, and I've done a lot with comic-sans-adjacent fonts.
This font, however, is by far the most beautiful one I've encountered yet.
The parallels to comic sans are so obvious that first thing I did in the article is Ctrl-F "comic", because my first thought was: how much further has this taken the concept.
The distribution of mentions of Comic Sans in the article is revealing: there are a bunch of mentions at around the 30% mark (in which they acknowledge the obvious heritage), and then barely after that. This font really does go further. Beautiful!
Is it weird that I want a mono version if this? Looks really great, really well designed.
I'm a (currently, at least) big fan of Recursive Mono Casual[0] which I believe I downloaded from Google Fonts[1].
[0] https://www.recursive.design
[1] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Recursive?preview.script=L...
I recently came across Annotation Mono which has less of the informality of Shantell Sans, but still has a handwritten feel.
https://qwerasd205.github.io/AnnotationMono/
I use and love this. Not quite the same, and not free, but I think it's beautifully made.
https://tosche.net/fonts/codelia
I was also really hoping for a mino version. I have used comic-sans-inspired monospaced fonts for some time for coding, because I think they are extremely readable. This font is so beautiful, I’d really love to see it in my terminal
Dyslexic daughter gave a big thumbs up, she definitely prefers this to Roboto in the example.
I am not dyslexic, but the roboto example also highlighted a very stark difference in readability for me! Especially after having gotten used to shantell sans reading up to that point, the roboto felt nigh-unreadable.
First time seeing it and this is already my favourite hand-written font. Great work!
Do you think a corporate brand would get away with using this font site-wide?
In an increasingly sterile and AI world, is a human centric approach a good thing albeit possibly unprofessional by current standards?
A website could offer accessibility features, such as dark mode or dyslexia font. These could be subtle, or very obvious, depending on your target group. Large amounts of texts (e.g. a testimonial) could be a valid example. If you go for site-wide, you got consistency. If you'd apply it on h1-3 you'd put emphasis on the titles.
It'd be great if say Mozilla Firefox included this font natively (for the app itself). Then again, the default is currently Times New Roman...
gorgeous piece of human-computer engineering art.
superb.
totally usable in contexts where comic sans might be seen as kind of mocking.
I like it! Somehow balances playfulness and readability. Thanks for sharing.
A beautiful font, and a beautiful gift from the creators. Very nice!
tldraw uses this font. It’s a great fit for emulating hand-written notes on a whiteboard; feels human.