Globotipo: Making a typeface that is seen by 100M people daily | Hacker News Reader

Globotipo: Making a typeface that is seen by 100M people daily

plau.design

25 pointsairstrike11 comments

Ironically, the font usage on that website is difficult to read, at least on a mobile device.

It also has terrible information density and confusing layout on desktop.

Really? For me this is one of the best fonts I've seen in mobile. I really loved reading this article and the explanation behind a lovely typeface, in a new font. To me this was an example where the font really fit perfectly with the story.

I have used a lot of fonts over the years (many of them non-Roman), but I know nothing about legibility except a few anecdotes.

One such anecdote: I was trying to read a sign the other day that said either "68" or "88"--the two digits were almost touching, and it was extremely hard to read, as both the top left of the '6' and the '8' were rounded. I notice that the Globotipo font has the top left as an almost straight diagonal line. I like that.

BTW, there was no need for the two digits to be so close together--there was plenty of space on both sides.

I wonder why big companies create their own fonts instead of using freely available fonts?

"We're special and our customers should associate with the $CORP experience" if I had to guess

Typography is a huge part of communication, and by extension, brand identity. Companies value their brand. This is like saying: "why do companies create a whole unique logo for their brand?"

Bear in mind that most quality fonts aren't actually freely available, typography licensing is a complicated maze and for large for-profit companies often wildly expensive. Creating a custom typeface is expensive, sure, but it helps in establishing an identity and it also alleviates huge licensing fees.

Yep, designers/marketers designing new fonts feels very similar to techies creating new programming languages/frameworks/libraries all the time even though very similar things exist.

Its very much part of the brand of the company.

Its similar to film scores to film/tv. Its not immediately noticeable to most people unless you take it away.

for example if you play the benny hill theme during lord of the rings fight scenes, it completely changes the feel of the scene. Whilst not as powerful, if you change the font for bbc/nyt/$other news org to comic sans, it has an equally powerful effect.

So just use an obscure free font?

For a lot of large companies, "free" fonts aren't free. They need to be licensed. If you're going to do that, you might as well just make your own. The upfront cost _might_ be comparable, but the ongoing costs are almost zero. Also you don't need to re-license if you make an new app or something similar. For about $50k you can have a font of your choice, which is free to use as you wish. Moreover you can create derivatives without getting into trouble.

I'm not sure how much it costs to license a font for something like a newspaper/online site. But its not insignificant.

Its also another way you can wield a ban hammer if someone is ripping off your work.

https://archive.org/details/globotipo2016

The website is mostly times new roman? Probably the titles are globotipo.

Anyway, not memorable at all.

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