Should fonts custom-made "for UI and UX" be optimized for web?

Vasil Stanev
Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
in Font Technology
With snapping contours to the alignment zones etc. And are there some specificities for UI/UX that most peoples don't know, like omitting certain symbols etc.

Comments

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,886
    Certainly, it seems desirable to put really good hinting in a UI/UX font.
    (To be overly pedantic: you are optimizing for screen, not only for web.)
  • Christopher Slye
    Christopher Slye Posts: 150
    I agree with Thomas; I think the task is to optimize for screens. If your brief is to create a font for “UI/UX”, then that’s primarily about the design itself (x-height, legibility, efficiency), and it’s probably self-evident that it should be more regular with regard to its alignment zones, stem widths, spacing, etc.

    Unless it’s very specifically purpose-made (e.g. for device embedding or a special environment), I think it would be a mistake to limit the character set. By and large, fonts these days can use all the characters they can get.
  • Vasily Draigo
    Vasily Draigo Posts: 46
    If it is Windows compatible, then the most important thing is high-quality hinting. 
    Don't forget the gasp table for maximum legibility in small sizes.
  • Roel Nieskens
    Roel Nieskens Posts: 188
    Aren't all fonts made for "user experience"? :-)

    I think for UI (and data) purposes you'd want to disable proportional figures to avoid "wobbly numbers" in timers, counters, columns of numbers. Otherwise I wouldn't know what you need to do that's beneficial specifically for UI, but not for regular text.
  • Johannes Neumeier
    Johannes Neumeier Posts: 377
    I do think aside from technical aspects, pure-bred UI fonts do have some design characteristics like large x-height, big on the body/small line-height, good legibility of individual glyphs, also often being a bit on the wide side to accommodate small type setting, and strong and even appearance without any embellishments, etc. Hinting makes a good UI font great, but design makes a UI font to begin with.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,886
    Not necessarily wide; Tahoma is the UI version of Verdana, and is primarily different by being narrower than Verdana. (Although to be fair, Verdana is VERY wide!)

    Other than that, I agree with Johannes.
  • Vasily Draigo
    Vasily Draigo Posts: 46
    Just an interesting article on the subject TT Interphases: History of Font Creation | by TypeType Team | Medium

    I think Spotify is a good example, they use Circular font, thanks to hinting it looks great both on the web and in their app, the font itself cannot be called an interface font but thanks to hinting it is perfectly readable everywhere. But if you create a font specifically for ui, then of course it’s better to adjust the font design itself to this.

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