Roboto vs Helvetica Neue: Can you distinguish the new Android typeface?
typewar.com
typewar.com
Edit: of course this doesn't even account for kerning, punctuation, etc.
http://theunderstatement.com/post/11645166791/roboto-vs-helv...
Really, what's the point here? That Roboto is another entry in the Helvetica/Arial family of sans serif typefaces? Shocking!
Edit: If I had to find a flame in this area: I think it can be argued that if Google really wanted to make the Roboto font into part of the Android brand, to the extent that they market it via its own name, they should have worked harder at making it unique. This is, indeed, a very bland tweaking of a strong existing standard. It's not something particularly notable.
It does epitomize the difference between Apple, which just goes and writes the check and Google, who seem intent on following Microsoft down a road of "embrace and extend".
Thank you EU antitrust regulators.
(1) it's a ripoff, that's certainly been contested in this thread.
(2) the right thing to do is license it or at least acknowledge that the font isn't original. Here's what Matias said at the event yesterday: "Meet Roboto. It's a totally new typeface ... Built from scratch"
But the core issue here is that you don't understand the typography industry. Typeface vendors have been cloning and selling each other's work since long before fonts were something rasterized on a computer. Helvetica happens to be one successful font, and it's spawned a huge number of clones. You're probably aware of Arial, but there's also Nimbus Sans, Swiss, Triumvirate (yes, I used Google to look those up, but I'm pretty sure the list gets into the dozens).
So Helvetica Neue and Roboto are new entries in the family. Apple chose the former and plugged it needlessly via marketing. Google hired a font designer (for reasons that likely have to do with the ability to open source the result, c.f. the Droid Sans fonts earlier, or the Bitstream Vera family in desktop linux) to do their clone, and likewise plugged it needlessly.
That you insist on making some kind of platform flame out of this is beyond me. It's just not interesting.
"But the core issue here is that you don't understand the typography industry."
The core issue here is you want to make this about me. It isn't. You don't know the first thing about what I do and don't know.
"So Helvetica Neue and Roboto are new entries in the family."
Yes, put the dominant san-serif font in publishing over the last 30+ years and a clone that debuted yesterday on an equal footing -- that's an incredibly fair and honest summary of the situation.
Well, you seem to think that basing a font on another is a ripoff, and that's the bit on which the parent poster is basing his assertion.
Many of us feel it is not a ripoff. Helvetica, however popular, was not the first of its kind, and most average people wouldn't be able to tell it from Akzidenz-Grotesk, created some 60 years earlier.
Almost every major foundry has a Helvetica clone. If this is a big deal, it was a big deal before the relatively minor addition of Roboto.
"I was too kind last night. Roboto is a Helvetica rip-off. It’s Google’s Arial."
The point of this sub-thread is really establishing that Google developed their own font based on Helvetica. A number of posters have contended that they aren't that similar.
I think what's going to distinguish these fonts isn't their individual character forms (which I do think are significantly different, perhaps even more so than Arial and Helvetica), but their optimisations. That is, how Roboto has been given ligatures, kerning, and hinting to make it work well on mobile phone screens at the sizes it'll be rendered at.
(Also, the typewar quiz is a little unfair: it's hard to scrutinise character width and it doesn't seem to include numerals---areas where there are quite noticeable differences between the two.)
That being said, I like Robota and am glad that Android has a nicer font now. Also, people don't care, or shouldn't have to care, if it's Helvetica or something else, as long as it is more pleasing to the eye. On that count, Google did a good thing; good but not classy.
Edit: here's what I mean https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:Helvetic... and http://sixrevisions.com/infographics/helvetica-font-weights-...
I agree with many of the points people are making (there are some differences, there are many Helvetica/etc based fonts, etc). Really the most amusing thing to me is that Google made a big deal out of the type change - it was the first point in their Ice Cream Sandwich launch. Can you imagine if at Apple's iPhone 4/iOS 4 launch they said "and our first big feature is: we're dropping Helvetica! For Helvetica Neue!"
http://typographica.org/2011/on-typography/roboto-typeface-i...
I'd think only the top 1% of font enthusiasts would be able to identify a sans font for a single "T" or "V", but Roboto has plenty of giveaways from Helvetica in the a, e, q, p, b, d, x, g, etc. Used in a sentence, I'd be able to identify it over Helvetica every time.
Moreover, it appears (at least on my monitor) to be a much more readable font.
edited
Nobody's been injured here.
What rights are those, exactly? Typefaces are not copyrightable under US law. You can get design patents, but Helvetica was developed in 1957, any such patent would be long expired.
You can trademark the name, but that's of no consequence here.
You can copyright a particular "font file" in much the same way you can copyright a block of code, but that doesn't prevent someone else from creating their own version that is visually indistinguishable.
So, what rights would be violated here, exactly?
It's irrelevant when Helvetica Neue was updated, that makes no difference to the protection (or lack thereof) for the designs already embodied in Helvetica.
Anyway I agree that Google didn't rip anyone off.