Mozilla's New Fira Typeface
It's designed by Erik Spiekermann:
Very nice. It's awfully similar to Droid Sans, but the slightly lower x-height, and more more "playful" elements (like the gap in the lowercase 'g', the curve at the bottom of the lowercase 'l') make it bit more playful and legible. Above all, it feels more balanced, and accomplished, than Droid Sans.
Excellent work.
Hey look, its already in the AUR:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/otf-fira-sans/
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/otf-fira-mono/
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ttf-fira-sans/
Who needs firefox OS (I do have the in-browser emulator running, though), I just changed my system font to this. I'll have opinions after a days usage.
Interesting. The character for greek k (kappa - κ ) is wrong though. The vertical line of the greek k doesn't rise above the rest of the character. It might seem small but it really strikes as ugly and wrong for anyone used to the language.
This is a beautiful looking font and I could definitely see myself adopting it when typing papers.
I'd love to use it in my terminal, but my only problem is the zero isn't dotted or slashed. My terminal font is stupid-small (I think 10pt), and the 0 and O looking similar has bitten me in code a few times.
Well, shit...
Direct link to the specimen page: http://mozilla.github.io/Fira/
I'm not a fan. I just don't get why they adapted FF Meta. It's overly complex (the 'g' for example), and not a great display font. They should strive for simplicity, rather than individuality. Android's Roboto and iOS's Helvetica Neue achieve this, my personal preference being for for latter.
I'm really curious as to why they would use images over font-face in the style guide examples http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/styleguide/products/firefox-os/.... As a designer you want to see how the typeface performs in the wild, not snaps of it with some arbitrary aliasing.
It's not a bad typeface, although the kerning on the light weight needs a lot of work. If you're wondering what I mean, look at the word 'quick'.
Hmm. Looks like FF Meta optimized for screens. Odd that Mozilla and Erik Spiekermann felt this justified having its own name.
I made a quick side by side comparison between Fira and Meta Pro: http://i.imgur.com/Oo3yeYx.png
Looking forward to the next version of the typeface, Firaga.
I'm not a typography expert, so this looks like a hundred other fonts I've seen. Why does every OS need its own custom font?
The dot on the lower case 'i' is so high! Outside of that, it looks alright, but still needs some work.
I like it but I tried it on two different monitors and it looks reddish?
I'm guessing that's something to do with anti-aliasing but I haven't noticed it before...
I'm not sure about the hinting on the font, or maybe it's the rendering in the browser. It just doesn't seem that smooth.
Overall I like it a lot, but I don't like that the sides of the capital M are so slanted. It sticks out a lot in the third screenshot: http://mozorg.cdn.mozilla.net/media/img/styleguide/products/...
The typeface's original name was Feura: https://twitter.com/espiekermann/status/359353798663221248
Why change from Feura to Fira? English-speakers pronounce it as “Fjura”, not “Foyra”. And Fjura sounds like Führer. Not good.Letter spacing seems wide and overall kerning seems messy, but I don't know much about fonts.
Here's a link with some actual screenshot examples:
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/styleguide/products/firefox-os/...
I love the small g. Notice the differences between normal and italics (especially a, e, f, g, k). It's not just slanted, but curvier as well. Really makes it stand out.
Nice! I wonder if they deliberately made it close enough to FF Meta that the Firefox wordmark is recognisable?
Not a fan of it all, but massive congratulations for them including the different weights properly.
Hm, currently no capital letters ''XYZ'' on the demo page.
Nice font! The demo site could use taller lines. (increase line-height)
The zero and O is similar aw. Other wise it's pretty nice.
Nice font face, just a shame that Mozilla spends time making web fonts while their actual browser is crap at rendering them. Sa-a-aaad....
I like it!
Clarity, share, curve. Bold, italicize.
is this gonna be the default font on firefox desktop and mobile?
Ugly as fuck. Can anyone make something that actually beats Helvetica Neue?
Fira mono looks good.
Does anyone know how/why Helvetica wound up the most appealing font?
Publishing content with Helvetica font seems to give the content an automatic, unconscious boost in credibility. Why is that?
It seems to be a primal reaction rather than a learned behavior. Helvetica looks the best to me because it looks the best, not because someone else said so.
Obligatory link to xkcd - http://xkcd.com/927/
