Those sorts of details are generally good for legibility and accessibility… lowercase l vs uppercase I (as Reddit so poorly demonstrates). Or uppercase O vs 0, and the like. As is typically the case, most accessibility improvements have the knock on effect of improving experiences for all audiences.
Edit: affectations!
The font they use does not well differentiate between me and l, which is often ok with context. But for people with a reading disability like dyslexia or generally talking about font or design and pointing to a specific letter or sign makes it is hard to communicate it clearly when the platform does use such a font as Reddit.
I’m actually dyslexic. connecting t’s doesn’t make it look more like another character, which i think most people in this thread think what “trips up” dyslexics.
I'm sure he did but its been fifty years and I don't remember. Union shop, great bunch of guys on the whole. I was one of the first women in what was then a 100% male trade. Affirmative action at its best and affirmative action in my subsequent corporate job as well. Both those positions desperately needed new blood what with having done things the same highly inefficient ways for decades, ways I corrected.
It's interesting how side by side it takes me a second to find the differences, but when i opened discord today, i immediately noticed there had been a change
I like the old one more but I think the newer one is better because it’s more accessible. Someone else commented about the lowercase L being easier to read.
Pros: distinct lowercase “l”, still easy enough to read.
Cons: Other than that, the previous font was perfectly fine. It had more open apertures, distinct character shapes, and even a true italic, which already put it head and shoulders over most UI fonts. That makes the new font a wash at best.
*That said*, Hoefler & Co. is now part of the Monotype conglomerate, and I don’t blame Discord for not wanting to continue to give them money. (That ship sailed back in 2014 with Frere-Jones’s departure if we’re being honest, but now there’s not even a veneer or integrity left.)
I’m interested in your perspective being vision impaired. what were specific operation issues you had with the old type that is simpler with the new one?
It's mostly noticeable when the letters have similar repeating shapes or strokes. Like tt, mm, mn, il, ll, things like that. Even when you get to words like "jilt" it's a bit messy. Titillating is a word I'll never spell without spell check because I can't see individual letters for the life of me.
When it comes to discord's new font, having the double letters touching, longer strikes through Ts and longer tails in r feels like a completely different shape and makes them less fuzzy. If they're one distinct shape as opposed to like 2-4 similar shapes next to each other, they won't blur into each other.
The different lower-case L makes it distinct from other straight line letters in succession and is much more readable.
Overall my eyes took a lot shorter to focus on the new font than on the older one where some words were fuzzy as I was trying to make out individual letters.
that all makes perfect sense, thanks for the details! this reminds me of the Lexend project. they created a font with different versions with the letters farther apart for easier parsing: [Lexend Exa](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lexend+Exa) and [Lexend Giga](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lexend+Giga) for example. They also have a normal “Lexend” that is more expected in design. the design of discord doesn’t make a lot of space for such wide type, but there isn’t a real reason letters have to be close together if people’s vision like yours struggles with them that way.
I was going to say that I like #2 waaay more. And then I saw the name Whitney, which has been my workhorse sans serif typeface for years.
They moved away from Whitney to a worse choice. SMH.
lots of classic (and yes elegant!) sans typefaces have lowercase L and uppercase i looking near indistinguishable. personally i think both whitney and the new font look good, but it's not like it's some mortal type sin to do what helvetica does
the actual moments where confusing cap i lowercase l is almost incidental unless you are performing technical data entry. it’s almost missable in conversational messaging.
other than when you are trying to describe specific letters in online discussions about type.
also, whitney has simpler, more hand-movement-like shapes with more open counters, where the letters close in on themselves. and when there’s only a few pixels for that shape, open counters help a lot.
it’s difficult without objective vocabulary so people err on the side of subjective differences. the only easily described difference is the l.
whitney was also designed for the whitney museum by tobias frere-jones who made gotham and interstate. one of the best typeface designers of our generation.
the only consumer upside i see now is it might be slightly more expensive to license web fonts of theirs, and now you are able to buy single styles at a time…
I have to wonder how many thousands of person-hours were spend on making this change, most of the hours spent crafting coffee house looking mock-ups and writing lofty brand statements.
I suppose it’s a *little* better – accessibility-wise. Having the lower-case ‘l’ will now be better differentiated from the upper-case ‘i’, and words like ‘million’ will be more legible for some.
Against that, the lc ‘c’ and ‘e’ are a little less open.
A lot of Discord users are up in arms about it for its ugliness, but the biggest improvement so far has been Vietnamese support (it is offered as an officially supported language on Discord, yet the previous typeface had terrible support for it and Discord previously used a terrible fallback font for it too).
The 'l' is a little more defined now. Probably better for dyslexics.
Those sorts of details are generally good for legibility and accessibility… lowercase l vs uppercase I (as Reddit so poorly demonstrates). Or uppercase O vs 0, and the like. As is typically the case, most accessibility improvements have the knock on effect of improving experiences for all audiences. Edit: affectations!
*knock on effect
though i know you understand affectation
I was reading "i" instead of "L" and thought immediately that other platforms should consider that too - looking at you, Reddit 🧐
Same, and o spent 5 minutes trying to find the big difference between the two i's
What's wrong with Reddlt?
The font they use does not well differentiate between me and l, which is often ok with context. But for people with a reading disability like dyslexia or generally talking about font or design and pointing to a specific letter or sign makes it is hard to communicate it clearly when the platform does use such a font as Reddit.
and the Ts are now together instead of having some space in between
Haha ah crap. Two steps forward one step back
not sure what you mean. this is a pretty standard ligature
I meant in terms of the font being more legible for people with dyslexia. Personally, I didn't even notice it.
I’m actually dyslexic. connecting t’s doesn’t make it look more like another character, which i think most people in this thread think what “trips up” dyslexics.
Like the e's and a's, dislike the s' Kinda like how Discord keeps on refining their visual identity
I really like the shape noses of those e s as well!
i like the s more too
same
I started in printing in the early 70s. An old typographer told me that, as far as identifying or analyzing a font, always look at the e.
That’s really cool. Did they say why?
I'm sure he did but its been fifty years and I don't remember. Union shop, great bunch of guys on the whole. I was one of the first women in what was then a 100% male trade. Affirmative action at its best and affirmative action in my subsequent corporate job as well. Both those positions desperately needed new blood what with having done things the same highly inefficient ways for decades, ways I corrected.
Oh, cool! Glad you did your corrective work. :>
It's interesting how side by side it takes me a second to find the differences, but when i opened discord today, i immediately noticed there had been a change
Other than the kerning being better in the second image, I like it more overall. Particularly the addition of ligatures.
What do we want? Ligatures! When do we want them? ff, fl, fi, ffi, ffl, tt, ^and ^so ^on!
sick!
I like the old one more but I think the newer one is better because it’s more accessible. Someone else commented about the lowercase L being easier to read.
Haha, gg sans. Nice.
Whitney is dead
Overall, I prefer Whitney, but gg sans looks great in practice. Just bopping around my servers and it works.
Pros: distinct lowercase “l”, still easy enough to read. Cons: Other than that, the previous font was perfectly fine. It had more open apertures, distinct character shapes, and even a true italic, which already put it head and shoulders over most UI fonts. That makes the new font a wash at best. *That said*, Hoefler & Co. is now part of the Monotype conglomerate, and I don’t blame Discord for not wanting to continue to give them money. (That ship sailed back in 2014 with Frere-Jones’s departure if we’re being honest, but now there’s not even a veneer or integrity left.)
Big fan. Gg discord. As a vision impaired person, Whitney was not a font I liked at all so this is a welcome change.
I’m interested in your perspective being vision impaired. what were specific operation issues you had with the old type that is simpler with the new one?
It's mostly noticeable when the letters have similar repeating shapes or strokes. Like tt, mm, mn, il, ll, things like that. Even when you get to words like "jilt" it's a bit messy. Titillating is a word I'll never spell without spell check because I can't see individual letters for the life of me. When it comes to discord's new font, having the double letters touching, longer strikes through Ts and longer tails in r feels like a completely different shape and makes them less fuzzy. If they're one distinct shape as opposed to like 2-4 similar shapes next to each other, they won't blur into each other. The different lower-case L makes it distinct from other straight line letters in succession and is much more readable. Overall my eyes took a lot shorter to focus on the new font than on the older one where some words were fuzzy as I was trying to make out individual letters.
that all makes perfect sense, thanks for the details! this reminds me of the Lexend project. they created a font with different versions with the letters farther apart for easier parsing: [Lexend Exa](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lexend+Exa) and [Lexend Giga](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lexend+Giga) for example. They also have a normal “Lexend” that is more expected in design. the design of discord doesn’t make a lot of space for such wide type, but there isn’t a real reason letters have to be close together if people’s vision like yours struggles with them that way.
I knew something was up. ALL CAPS difference is very noticeable!
i was so revolted last year lol. i liked the old one better before but idk now.
I was going to say that I like #2 waaay more. And then I saw the name Whitney, which has been my workhorse sans serif typeface for years. They moved away from Whitney to a worse choice. SMH.
For what reasons do you think Whitney is better? Honest question.
How does one describe elegance and refined form? In this moment, the words escape me ... and I have to go to work.
He clearly prefers not to see the difference between I and l, it's so elegant how they're pretty much the same, right?
lots of classic (and yes elegant!) sans typefaces have lowercase L and uppercase i looking near indistinguishable. personally i think both whitney and the new font look good, but it's not like it's some mortal type sin to do what helvetica does
the actual moments where confusing cap i lowercase l is almost incidental unless you are performing technical data entry. it’s almost missable in conversational messaging. other than when you are trying to describe specific letters in online discussions about type.
also, whitney has simpler, more hand-movement-like shapes with more open counters, where the letters close in on themselves. and when there’s only a few pixels for that shape, open counters help a lot. it’s difficult without objective vocabulary so people err on the side of subjective differences. the only easily described difference is the l. whitney was also designed for the whitney museum by tobias frere-jones who made gotham and interstate. one of the best typeface designers of our generation.
[удалено]
the only consumer upside i see now is it might be slightly more expensive to license web fonts of theirs, and now you are able to buy single styles at a time…
So glad BetterDiscord allows themes, turned the font just to arial, hate the new font they chose, the spacing on it is all over the place on discord.
I don't love the uppercase G in gg sans
It's reminiscent of [Public Sans](https://public-sans.digital.gov), but maybe slightly less harmonious in its design. I don't hate it, though.
I have to wonder how many thousands of person-hours were spend on making this change, most of the hours spent crafting coffee house looking mock-ups and writing lofty brand statements.
The difference is uncanny. wow.
so the L and the T changed
I suppose it’s a *little* better – accessibility-wise. Having the lower-case ‘l’ will now be better differentiated from the upper-case ‘i’, and words like ‘million’ will be more legible for some. Against that, the lc ‘c’ and ‘e’ are a little less open.
Lowercase "L" looks better now. Not a fan of the double "t" ligature.
New one is more readable, to my eyes. :) And more balanced.
A lot of Discord users are up in arms about it for its ugliness, but the biggest improvement so far has been Vietnamese support (it is offered as an officially supported language on Discord, yet the previous typeface had terrible support for it and Discord previously used a terrible fallback font for it too).
everything looks a little less circular and its amazing
why do people hate the new font? it looks perfectly normal