I like it. I'm not generally that enthusiastic about these corporate fonts (though I know why they do it) but it's good to see some strong opinions in the serifs. It's so much better than the exaggerated anachronistic ink traps that has become such a visual cliche of the 2020s internet.
I'm into typography and I like trying out new fonts, but what's with the sudden flood of everyone making their own lately? I remember how novel and interesting it was a few years ago when, like, JetBrains Mono came out. Now it's like every code-adjacent company has their own. Is AI particularly good at font design or something?
A good part of it is simply license costs and obligations makes it attractive for certain kinds and sizes of businesses. But there are plenty good open source fonts now that could be used as a basis so that's not all of it.
The other is that people with an eye for design like fonts the way mushrooms like decaying wood. If you leave a designer unattended for too long fonts appear as if from nowhere.
As someone else mentioned, it's almost certainly licensing costs. Monotype bought up all the classic foundries, and their licensing gets very expensive, very quick. You could literally hire a top-tier type designer as a permanent full-time hire to work on your in-house fonts part time and then do whatever they want with the other 99.9% of their time and it would still be cheaper than what Monotype wants.
Previously it was every company that made a device, before that any company with a text-heavy app like a Word Processor. I think if you stare at fonts long enough and have a design team you eventually make your own.
> At Vercel, Geist Sans runs the product. For headlines, though, we wanted a second voice, one that belongs to the same system, instead of a stranger picked from a drop-down menu.
I hate hate hate hate hate this verbiage. I can't tell if this is AI or the kind of insipid marketroid-speak that gave AI writing its distinctive grossness, but it makes me want to barf reading this slop, which is a shame because the font itself is nice.
The article is such pure LLM slop that quoting it got your comment killed by HN's LLM comment detection. Wouldn't be surprised if Claude is responsible for most of the design choices too.
The other is that people with an eye for design like fonts the way mushrooms like decaying wood. If you leave a designer unattended for too long fonts appear as if from nowhere.
Dunno about the font, but the copy on this page is 100% Claude.
Also the indentation in the code sample near the end is quite terrible
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CJK_fonts#Ming
This font renders like trash on my 9 year old widescreen, but I am sure it will look gorgeous on a MBP display. Guess I found my excuse to upgrade!
> and it was drawn to communicate messages powerfully both in the physical world and
.. in the ethereal?
Groan.
I hate hate hate hate hate this verbiage. I can't tell if this is AI or the kind of insipid marketroid-speak that gave AI writing its distinctive grossness, but it makes me want to barf reading this slop, which is a shame because the font itself is nice.