Comments on: Droid font family courtesy of Google & Ascender

By: Professionelle Fonts zum kostenlosen Download | Allgemeines | Dr. Web Weblog

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:57:16 +0000

[...] Droid Font Family Google’s Android project, eine Open-Source-Plattform für mobile Geräte, enthält die Schriftfamilie Droid, die extra für optimale Lesbarkeit von Texten auf mobilen Geräten entworfen wurde. [...]

By: Crazy Monkey Gurls Unite » Blog Archive » The Emperor’s New Clothes

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:06:46 +0000

[...] you really want to see it in all its glory, go get yourself a copy of the Google/Ascender-developed font Droid. It’s free, and it’s available for Mac, Linux and Windows. It’s also pretty [...]

By: Eugene Zagidullin

Eugene Zagidullin — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:20:05 +0000

>way better on Mac OS X, regretfully

freetype under linux can produce the same output with hinting turned off and Cleartype-like subpixel filtering (this feature exists in freetype since 2.3.0, but needed patched Cairo and libXft to utilize it). Droid Sans in UI: http://www.ljplus.ru/img4/a/s/asphyx_lj/xfce_droid.png

By: Damien Guard

Damien Guard — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:00:27 +0000

@Kriston Because they are designed to be used on Google's Android Platform for mobile phones that will always be anti-aliased.

[)amien

By: Kriston

Kriston — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:25:19 +0000

Awful fonts. Why aren't they hinted for non-anti-aliased viewing?
I expect more.

By: Mack

Mack — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:52:16 +0000

Droid font family rocks! Thanks :)

By: room34.com | Room 34 Multimedia » Droid fonts

room34.com | Room 34 Multimedia » Droid fonts — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 06:37:52 +0000

[...] DamienG has provided a link to download the Droid font family. How [...]

By: Valis

Valis — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:24:41 +0000

The real difference is that on Mac Apple has given you a Text editor that has a few nicities and a decent level of flexibility with file formats and encodings. With Wordpad on Windows you have a perfectly acceptable font engine that isn't being used in Wordpad because MS only tosses that in as a cut-down version of an ancient version of its cash cow MS Word (now only bundled in MS Office). The fully expect you to upgrade to Office (which would replace Wordpad's file associations anyway) since everyone uses Office anyway, right??

By: Enlaces para el 2007/12/08

Enlaces para el 2007/12/08 — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:04:27 +0000

[...] Entre las fuentes anteriores destaca Droid, desarrollada por Ascender para Android. Esta fuente ha sido portada a Windows y Mac por Damien Guard. Se puede descargar Droid Font en la página de Damien, donde también esta su artículo al respecto: Droid font family courtesy of Google & Ascender. [...]

By: Damien Guard

Damien Guard — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:58:16 +0000

@Radomir: The Windows screenshot does not having smoothing disabled - it is using ClearType smoothing hence the sub-pixel precision you observe.

[)amien

By: Radomir Dopieralski

Radomir Dopieralski — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 07:03:28 +0000

Lets not exaggerate, Windows sucks but not that much, if you look closely you'll see that the Windows rendering has simply disabled smoothing. Some people disable it, I have no idea why. (but Note that both screenshots have subpixel hinting enabled, which can give pretty bad effects for people not using LCD screen or using one with different subpixel layout.

The fonts are very nice, I especially like the monospace font, I'm glad that designers finally start to gravitate towards the original VGA fonts. Still, Terminus seems to me to be much better for programming and terminal, shame it's not a real truetype font.

By: Ollivier Robert

Ollivier Robert — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:57:46 +0000

The font looks great, even a bit better than BitStream Vera/DeJaVu but has far less characters (560 total) than DeJaVu... There is no italic/slanted version of Droid Sans Mono :(

By: Amar Sagoo

Amar Sagoo — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:55:14 +0000

The sans-serif face really reminds me of Myriad Pro (Apple's corporate typeface).
The serif face looks similar to Cambria, one of the new Vista/Office 2007 fonts.

By: Hamranhansenhansen

Hamranhansenhansen — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:49:27 +0000

There is no point showing the XP rendering, it is well known that Windows does not render type to professional standards. There is mp information to be had there except yep, Windows still can't render type. Better to show Illustrator or Photoshop rendering next to Mac.

By: Damien Guard

Damien Guard — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:00:27 +0000

The headlines on the Mac are the same 'point size' however the different DPI's mean that you have to bump fonts up 10% to get similar sizes so it's not that easy to compare directly.

[)amien

By: Josh Santangelo

Josh Santangelo — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:55:34 +0000

To my eye, these look like attempts to be visually compatible with Georgia and Verdana, and are not particularly amazing designs in their own right. This is good for web sites that target the standard MS fonts for their designs, though.

By: Bryce

Bryce — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:40:08 +0000

I <3 Mac font smooothing.

By: Simon

Simon — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:38:27 +0000

Those are some nice fonts, but how *anyone* can look at both the XP and the OSX renderings and prefer
the XP version is just beyond me. The pixel boundaries are so sharp and ugly that the imperfections in
the 'D' in the first "Droid Serif" just grab the eye and won't let go!

Compare the OSX renderings. It's the difference between CGA graphics on an ancient PC, compared
with hard-copy printed text. And this is progress ? Colour me luddite and spare my eyes...

By: ccaajj

ccaajj — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:24:28 +0000

Why did you have to use different font sizes on Mac and XP?

By: Nicholas Riley

Nicholas Riley — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:51:00 +0000

If you want to extract the fonts yourself on a Mac, it's pretty simple; no need for mounting the filesystem. Run the emulator, then ddms from the SDK (in the tools directory). In ddms, choose File Explorer from the Device menu, then you'll find the fonts in /system/fonts. Select one or more fonts and hit the left toolbar button (looks like a floppy disk with a left-pointing arrow on it) and you can save them wherever.