Geist, a typeface specifically designed for developers and designers | Hacker News Reader

Geist, a typeface specifically designed for developers and designers

vercel.com

36 pointscratermoon16 comments

Are fonts for programmers/designers just really easy to make or something? there has to be dozens if not hundreds I've seen actively promoted so far.

I'm not saying people can't make what they want, I just don't see the point in making flashy websites trying to "sell" their free font?

If it's meant to be a monospace-for-coding font, they really should show off... you know... what code looks likes in it.

I noticed that O and 0 don't look different. Although there's a big table on the page showing all the letterforms and numbers where the 0 has a slash, the demo has it with no slash. I'd fail it for programming if O and 0 are identical.

Nice, but I wonder why Vercel is doing this. Is there some clause in the standard VC contract, that once you’ve raised enough capital, you have to commission your own typeface?

We’re kinda getting spoiled with options, now every medium to large tech company seems to be releasing their own typeface.

It's a money-saving measure. Pay a typographer once and own your own font, vs. having to pay Monotype or whoever a yearly sub with endless licensing issues.

If it were just a money-saving measure, I'd imagine they'd have continued using Inter with whatever complementary monospaced font they had been using.

Vercel's motivation appears to be that, unlike other fonts, Geist was designed with "precision, clarity, and functionality at its core", which "enhances the visual experience of developers and designers", which in turn finally "empowers them to effectively communicate their ideas".

Even if Inter wasn't a fit, and they really specifically needed an open-source font that looked like Helvetica (er, sorry, that drew "inspiration from the renowned Swiss design movement") with a more distinguishable I/l/1 and a monospace version, IBM Plex is free.

To iterate on mikl's question: also nice, but I wonder why IBM did this.

Plex at least riffs on IBMs earlier typography efforts with the classic Selectric typewriter balls, notably the double story g.

At last!

Yes, agree with you that it's a conspicuous consumption kind of thing.

I dunno about VCs/ tech companies, but there are many companies with custom typefaces they use for their marketing materials, not just logos. Many of them are close to existing fonts so you don't notice. Alaska Airlines has AS Circular[1], e.g., but only type nerds would see the difference from Circular. Domino's has one, BBC[2], CNN , Coca-Cola (not just the swirly logo)[3], National Park Service has some[4], and of course Disney has Waltograph.

1 https://auro.alaskaair.com/typography/overview

2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/branding/reith-font/

3 https://www.coca-colacompany.com/content/dam/company/us/en/v...

4 https://www.nps.gov/subjects/hfc/nps-graphic-identity-and-st...

Seen multiple comments about the O and 0 similarity making this unsuitable for programming, which seems like a big misstep.

Sans and mono as variable font are each around 45kb for the .woff2 - not bad!

The url for this is simply: https://vercel.com/font

(Submitted earlier this week)

My eye keeps getting drawn to the lowercase s. It looks wrong, like it's upside down.

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