Typography articles (43)
Advent of Fonts 2024
December 2024 sees the fourth year of my Advent of Fonts project where I published a 24-day advent calendar of 8x8 pixel on Mastodon.
Advent of Fonts 2023
December 2023 saw the third year of my Advent of Fonts project where I published a 24-day advent calendar of 8x8 pixel on Mastodon.
Advent of Fonts 2022
Through December 2022 I again produced a 24-day advent calendar of 8x8 pixel fonts this time primarily on Mastodon.
Advent of Fonts 2021
In December 2021 I tweeted a 24-day calendar of 8x8 pixel fonts.
Using variable web fonts for perf
Webfonts are now ubiquitous across the web to the point where most of the big players even have their own typefaces and the web looks a lot better for it.
ZX-Origins - free 8-bit fonts for games
I started designing fonts around 1987 on an 8-bit Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Many years later, my involvement in the Spectrum emulation scene led aul Dunn to ask me if I could provide fonts for his excellent BASIN Sinclair BASIC for Windows. My interest in 8x8 fonts was suitably rekindled, and I ended up delivering about 60 - some even extracted from my original +3 disk images.
Typography in bits: For a few pixels more
Examining the system fonts of the TRS-80 Color Computer, Dragon, Tatung Einstein, Commodore 128, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, and Oric Atmos.
Typography in bits: Other English micros
Examining the system fonts of the Sinclair QL, Memotech MTX512, Amstrad PCW, Acorn Archimedes and SAM Coupé.
Typography on the Microsoft Campus
One of the great things about working for Microsoft was the sheer breadth of the company means there are lots of cool and interesting things going on that you can peek into even if it’s not your area.
Typography can be fun
People are always surprised when they hear you’re interested in typography. The appreciation and interest in the shape of letters and symbols is definitely a little more unusual to find as a hobby but it’s actually quite fun!
Android’s Roboto system font for Ice Cream Sandwich
Google have switched system font for Android’s latest release (known as Ice Cream Sandwich) from the Droid Family to a new typeface known as Roboto.
Typography in 16-bits: System fonts
A look at the system fonts of 16-bit machines including the IBM CGA & VGA Adapters, Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, and Atari ST.
Typography in 8 bits: System fonts
Examining the system fonts of the Commodore PET, Apple ][, Atari 400/800, Acorn BBC Micro, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, and MSX.
Font hinting and instructing – a primer
Taking my bitmap font Envy Code B into the vector TrueType Envy Code R was a long process, the most difficult being hinting.
The Xerox Alto mono-spaced font rises again
Computing history tells us of a mythical place where many of the innovations we take for granted today were either invented or refined to a working level at a single location known as the Xerox’s Palo-Alto Research Center (PARC).
Envy Code R preview #7 (v0.7)
Envy Code R preview 7.2 is released with many glyphs redrawn and a full complement of box-drawing characters.
More screen-shots of Envy Code R preview #7
Work on my Envy Code R programming font has resumed and I’ve spent hours playing with the hinting process to ensure it looks good at sizes above and below 10 point:
Getting the hint (Where is Envy Code R?)
I know, I said there would be a good chance that the next version of Envy Code R would be out this weekend but the annoying sizing, thickness and cropping issues that came up at some sizes above and below the optimum 10 point were really annoying me.
Envy Code R coding font v0.7 preview
The next version of my Envy Code R font especially designed for programming (monospaced, easily distinguishable characters) is nearing completion and represents a very response-driven update to feedback, specifically:
Droid font family courtesy of Google & Ascender
Google’s Android project, an open platform for mobile devices, has been hitting the news a lot in the last couple of days with it’s open APIs, Java-based development platform and optimized virtual machine.
Droid Sans Mono great coding font
Google’s Android project, an open platform for mobile devices, has been hitting the news a lot in the last couple of days with it’s open APIs, Java-based development platform and optimized virtual machine which includes the lovely set of typefaces from Ascender known as the Droid family.
Professional quality free fonts*
Every month FontShop make a font available for free for a limited time so grab it while you can. The best option is to join their monthly newsletter so you don’t miss one!
Ralph is behind the excellent Inconsolata font which is great for printing code or if you like large programming fonts. He also has a number of classical typefaces including the great ATF Century Catalogue, Museum Caps, LeBe, ATF Bodoni and ATF Franklin Gothic.
Older pixel fonts back online
Some of my older bitmap “pixel” font files are now available again, they are:
Envy Code A
Originally titled simply Envy this font was born out of dislike for on-screen small serifs and disappointment with many alternative programming fonts.
Envy Code B
While Envy Code A was being polished for release it dawned on my how I would now prefer a thinner, taller font with slightly looser spacing and aiming for the 'perfect' size to allow good representation of all letters clearly including those with accents. The 10pt variant is that font however during testing it became apparent some people would prefer a version with tighter vertical spacing. This could not be achieved without sacrificing the uniformity of accented characters with their non-accented variants.
Palm OS
Palm OS was designed for very small devices and as such the font is optimized for good visibility in constrained spaces. As such it makes a great proportional font in Windows where either space is at a premium (e.g. Visual Studio output window) or where you don't want somebody to read over your shoulder (MSN Messenger).
Envy Code R Jeff Atwood scheme
Jeff “Coding Horror” Atwood published a nice round-up of coding fonts he’s been looking at lately in Visual Studio with his own color scheme.
Fonts & typography
Specifically designed for programmers with clean distinct monospaced characters.
ZX Origins is a large collection of fonts that started life as 8x8 pixel monospaced fonts on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum now being repackaged in a variety of formats and massively expanded in the subsequent years.
Envy Code R preview #6 released with Visual Studio italics
A newer version of Envy Code R is available.
The last few days have been frantic ones putting the final touches to the next release of the Envy Code R typeface as I bring it closer to my idea of the perfect coding font.
Envy Code R preview #6 forthcoming
Envy Code R has been updated since this post.
I have been experimenting with Envy Code R over the last few months – everything from creating a bold version to delta hinting with Visual TrueType with mixed results.
Font rendering philosophies of Windows & Mac OS X
Jeff Atwood asked "What’s Wrong With Apple’s Font Rendering?". Well, MacOS and Windows take opposite approaches to rendering text so let's take a look at what that means.
Red Hat releases Liberation fonts
Linux vendor Red Hat have released a font family named Liberation under a GPL license.
Windows font evolution
Vista and Office 2007 are interesting as they provide major user interface work that also includes new sets of fonts. I thought it would be interesting to show the evolution of the various styles.
Programming fonts you might not have tried
If you’re tired of the ugly-as-sin Courier New and have tried the popular well-known scalable TrueType/OpenType mono-spaced/fixed-width replacements:
Envy Code R programming font – preview available for download
Envy Code R has been updated since this post.
Here is the Envy Code R programming font I’ve been working on as it currently stands:
Envy Code R work continues
Envy Code R has been updated since this post.
I’ve been back less than 36 hours but have managed to spend a little more time working on Envy Code R.
Preview of Envy Code R programming font
My last post got me thinking – if I’m so happy with Envy Code B bar it’s ability to scale or take advantage of ClearType then there is only one real option. I reached for the pixelated TrueType conversion of Envy Code B and five hours later had a rough version of my **first ever vector font** – Envy Code R.
Comparing programming fonts
The blogging about favorite programming fonts doesn’t seem to want to truly die down so here’s how I rate the most popular fonts for programming in descending order with my own Envy Code B which I use all the time – but now desperately needs the ClearType treatment.
Inconsolata OpenType programming font
My quest for something to replace Envy Code B on my ClearType-enabled systems continues.
Envy Code B font available in TrueType format
It’s been a long time coming but finally – a TrueType conversion of my programming font Envy Code B.
Palm OS font available
My conversion of the Palm OS system font – as seen on the Palm Pilot – is now available for download. I’ve re-created the original 7 point normal font, the 7 point bold and the 11 point larger text from Palm OS screen-shots.
If you need a really small proportional font that’s nice to read this could be what you’re looking for.
Envy Code A & Code B programming fonts updated
This month has seen my Envy Code A and Envy Code B fonts stumbled upon some 4,000 times thanks to a Digg to Keith Deven’s programming fonts page that links here.
I’ve taken this opportunity to update the fonts – Envy Code B had a couple of issues with mis-positioned characters in the 9pt version especially with “il#” characters in the bold one. Fixed.
ClearType, smoothed fonts and the bane of MS Sans Serif
Back in the days of Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and Mac OS 7 the operating systems used a bit mapped font as the default system font for the various windows and dialogs.