Curated List of Open-Source Typefaces(beautifulwebtype.com)
beautifulwebtype.com
Curated List of Open-Source Typefaces
https://beautifulwebtype.com/
25 comments
This is an excellent resource, and I think what impresses me most, beyond the design and comprehensiveness, is the curation. I considered myself fairly familiar with the current SIL type landscape, yet I had never heard of half of the type families on the home page, all of which look to be of a caliber with the best open-source (or otherwise) types out there.
Thanks for this site! I was going to request a way to type one's own text and see how it looks in the different typefaces, but the feature is already present: the text in the "compared with similar typefaces" section is editable! Maybe this could be slightly more discoverable that this text is editable.
I'd love to see EB Garamond on your serif list! It's my favorite open source garalde by a good measure.
If you want the best, step 1 is to eliminate anything with the Vera "l". The foot at the bottom is dreadful.
Step 2 is to eliminate anything with an "@" that doesn't have all 4 vertical lines when cut horizontally. That is, it should contain a full "a" of some sort, without the loss of a gap between the "a" and the surrounding circle.
After that there won't be many fonts left. Prefer a "$" that has both vertical bars. Prefer (){}{} that are tall, reaching both above and below a "X".
Make note of the tilde, asterisk, "a", and "g". These are notable for the style they give the font, but it is less clear what might be best.
Step 2 is to eliminate anything with an "@" that doesn't have all 4 vertical lines when cut horizontally. That is, it should contain a full "a" of some sort, without the loss of a gap between the "a" and the surrounding circle.
After that there won't be many fonts left. Prefer a "$" that has both vertical bars. Prefer (){}{} that are tall, reaching both above and below a "X".
Make note of the tilde, asterisk, "a", and "g". These are notable for the style they give the font, but it is less clear what might be best.
Would be cool to add Inconsolata/Ligconsolata to the monospace list... It's hands down my favorite monospace font.
Thanks for a very interesting and well presented collection. The suggested uses section is thoughtful. I was wondering if it might be possible to add some info on the original motivation/intent/application of the typeface. This is to see if it can help suggest a typeface's "natural" use.
No suggestions but the design and utility is beautiful.
Have you considered a book? Maybe update it every few years.
Lots of projects don't want to spend big on type but the designer can still probably expense a printed book to act as a catalog.
Lots of projects don't want to spend big on type but the designer can still probably expense a printed book to act as a catalog.
The website is called Beautiful Web Type. Nonetheless, it would be nice if you could also add recommendations for print, not only screen reading. I'm not sure how much this influences your decisions, but it might be worth screening fonts for print (and low-resolution print) specifically.
I was surprised not to see Gentium there; it's (IMO) a beautiful face, and has particularly strong support for less-common languages, which is often overlooked.
I filed an issue after the last time this project was mentioned here (in a comment) last week:
https://github.com/ubuwaits/beautiful-web-type/issues/33
https://github.com/ubuwaits/beautiful-web-type/issues/33
NotoSans also has strong language and character set support, though I like it for its single story "g".
https://www.google.com/get/noto/
https://www.google.com/get/noto/
This is a super cool website, thank you for sharing it.
My go-to in most situations is still the Source Pro family, but so many people seem to swear by Fira Code that I need to give it a try. (Although I'm not yet sold on ligatures)
Source Code Pro just seems to fit all my applications well - terminals, emacs, vim, visual studio code. Plus the serif and sans serif versions look good to me in the browser.
My go-to in most situations is still the Source Pro family, but so many people seem to swear by Fira Code that I need to give it a try. (Although I'm not yet sold on ligatures)
Source Code Pro just seems to fit all my applications well - terminals, emacs, vim, visual studio code. Plus the serif and sans serif versions look good to me in the browser.
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I was wondering if someone could send them a suggestion, and it's possible to do it under the form of a Github issue
https://github.com/ubuwaits/beautiful-web-type/issues
https://github.com/ubuwaits/beautiful-web-type/issues
This is a very nice resource. Thank you for sharing.
I like the presentation, and that the full list is immediately available at the bottom. I decided to kick Fira Code and have been using the IBM Plex family of typefaces throughout my editors, and it has really grown on me. It also looks great at a lot of sizes without anti-aliasing. Personally, I use IBM Plex Sans Condensed in UIs + Plex Mono in editors.
A while ago, Inter UI was introduced on HN. I decided to give it a shot and personally I'm more satisfied with it than many paid fonts like, say, Helvetica.
(Disclaimer: Have no affiliation with the TypeFace creator).
(Disclaimer: Have no affiliation with the TypeFace creator).
Lots of people have suggested adding Inter UI to this project. I've held off for two reasons: the creator, Rasmus, has built a very good site for the typeface himself and the typeface is under active development, which means my overview would constantly be in danger of being out of date.
> Lots of people have suggested adding Inter UI to this project.
For the sake of people who will be very happy to discover it, please do add it (unless you think it doesn't deserve a place on your list).
IMHO, regarding your concerns: (1) You can have a prominent link to the Inter UI site, as I'd expect you would to any typeface's web home. (2) Every typeface you include has gone through a bunch of revisions. Even if you don't yet have an automated way of handling updates, there's still value in the aggregation.
For the sake of people who will be very happy to discover it, please do add it (unless you think it doesn't deserve a place on your list).
IMHO, regarding your concerns: (1) You can have a prominent link to the Inter UI site, as I'd expect you would to any typeface's web home. (2) Every typeface you include has gone through a bunch of revisions. Even if you don't yet have an automated way of handling updates, there's still value in the aggregation.
Why does it matter if it is out-of-date?
Have you thought about a section for special use case fonts like OpenDyslexic?
At the end of last year/beginning of this year, I was working on this site heavily and attempted to use Patreon to fund the project. Ultimately, I didn't see enough interest and scaled back my time on it.
I still think it's a worthy goal to give an in-depth overview of the best typefaces, but I'm still looking for the right way of promoting and funding the project.