Mona Sans & Hubot Sans
Two new lovely open source variable fonts from Github.
Link tags: san
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How to Weave the Artisan Web | Whatever
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a site that’s not run by an amoral billionaire chaos engine, or algorithmically designed to keep you doomscrolling in a state of fear and anger, or is essentially spyware for governments and/or corporations? Wouldn’t it be nice not to have ads shoved in your face every time you open an app to see what your friends are up to? Wouldn’t it be nice to know that when your friends post something, you’ll actually see it without a social media platform deciding whether to shove it down your feed and pump that feed full of stuff you didn’t ask for?
Wouldn’t that be great?
How Florence Nightingale Changed Data Visualization Forever - Scientific American
The design process in action in Victorian England:
Recognizing that few people actually read statistical tables, Nightingale and her team designed graphics to attract attention and engage readers in ways that other media could not. Their diagram designs evolved over two batches of publications, giving them opportunities to react to the efforts of other parties also jockeying for influence. These competitors buried stuffy graphic analysis inside thick books. In contrast, Nightingale packaged her charts in attractive slim folios, integrating diagrams with witty prose. Her charts were accessible and punchy. Instead of building complex arguments that required heavy work from the audience, she focused her narrative lens on specific claims. It was more than data visualization—it was data storytelling.
Manrope – free sans-serif variable font
This font is a crossover of different font types: it is semi-condensed, semi-rounded, semi-geometric, semi-din, semi-grotesque. It employs minimal stoke thickness variations and a semi-closed aperture.
Sans Bullshit Sans — Leveraging the synergy of ligatures
As part of my content buddying process, I am henceforth going to typeset all drafts in this font. I just tested it with this sentence:
We can leverage the synergy of a rich immersive user paradigm shift.
Basil: Secret Santa as a Service | Trys Mudford
Trys writes up the process—and the tech (JAM)stack—he used to build basil.christmas.
Render Snarky Comments in Comic Sans—zachleat.com
Sounds like Zach had a great time at Indie Web Camp Düsseldorf:
I can’t really express how meaningful this experience was to me. An antithesis to the rat race of social media, IndieWebCamp was a roomful of kindred spirits that care about the web and their own websites and hosting their own content. It felt like the Google Reader days again, when everyone was blogging and writing on their own sites. I dunno if you can tell but I loved it.
He also made a neat little plug-in that renders negative comments in Comic Sans with mixed cased writing:
This isn’t intended to be a hot-take on Comic Sans. Instead it’s meant to change the tone of the negativity to make it sound like a clown is yelling at a kid’s birthday party.
Public Sans
A free and open source neutral sans-serif typeface, released as part of version two of the design system for the US federal government.
I commissioned an oil painting of Barbra Streisand’s cloned dogs
There’s something deliciously appropriate about using a painting cloning service to clone a photograph of some cloned dogs.
“Did you just order an oil painting of Barbra Streisand’s dogs?” is the most Simon and Natalie thing ever.
Although this comes close:
Transform your type online with variable fonts | Creative Bloq
This is a great interview with Rich on all things related to web typography—including, of course, variable fonts.
I’m so lucky that I literally get to work side by side with Rich; I get to geek out with him about font stuff all the time.
Ampersand 2018 | Rob Weychert
Rob attended the excellent Ampersand event last Friday and he’s made notes for each and every talk.
“What does that funny squiggle mean?” Playlist - BBC Ideas
¶, &, @, ‽, ☺, #, and ☛.
The Woman Who Gave the Macintosh a Smile | The New Yorker
A profile of Susan Kare, icon designer extraordinaire.
I loved the puzzle-like nature of working in sixteen-by-sixteen and thirty-two-by-thirty-two pixel icon grids, and the marriage of craft and metaphor.
Ampersand: Interview with Mandy Michael – Clear(left) Thinking – Medium
I’m soooo excited that Mandy is speaking at Ampersand here in Brighton in June!
Be there or be square.
How to use variable fonts in the real world | Clagnut
The gorgeous website for this year’s Ampersand conference might well be one of the first commercial uses of variable fonts in the wild. Here, Richard documents all the clever things Mark did to ensure good fallbacks for browsers that don’t yet support variable fonts.
Ampersand Web Typography Conference | 29 June 2018 | Brighton, UK
Save the date! The best web typography conference in the world is back in Brighton on June 29th, and this time it’s at the best venue: The Duke Of York’s.
In fact, you can do more than saving the date: you can snap up a super early bird ticket for whopping £85 saving.
Sandcastles
Take a break. Build a sandcastle. It’s relaxing.
Untitled Sans & Serif Design Information · Klim Type Foundry
Two new typefaces, designed to be deliberately lacking in expression.
The write-up of the making of the typefaces is as open and honest as the finished output. This insight into the design process rings very, very true:
Post rationalisation is an open secret in the design industry. Only when a project is finished can it be written up, the messy process is delineated and everything seems to follow a logical sequence up until the final thing is unveiled, spotless and perfect.
However, I suspect the process is largely irrational for most designers. There is a point where all the input has been processed, all the shit drawings, tenuous concepts and small ideas have been thrown away and you just work towards the finish, too exhausted and distracted to even know if it’s worth anything or not. And, if you’re lucky, someone or something will come along and validate the work.
Decovar: A multistyle decorative variable font by David Berlow
Here’s one of them new-fangled variable fonts that’re all the rage. And this one’s designed by David Berlow. And it’s free!
Yay, science! The 7th annual Science Hack Day SF roundup
Science Hack Day’s mission is simply to get excited and make things with science, and that’s just what everyone did. One of the remarks I made at the start of this year’s event was about how building community is one of the best things to be involved in right now after the election, and especially connecting different communities together as Science Hack Day does. Exploration is not a solo endeavor and thus it’s less about what you explore and more about the act of exploring. In community exploration, we build strength, support, and safe spaces.