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'Operator' is a font designed to make coding easier
While many of us bristle at the sight of Comic Sans (this writer included), coders have an altogether different view of typefaces and how they're presented. Thus, Operator Mono, the new font from one of the highest-regarded typeface-creators that was forged to make life easier for the folks who build the websites you visit. "In developing Operator, we found ourselves talking about Javascript and CSS," founder Jonathan Hoefler writes. While the blog post about typography and font faces can come off as a bit pretentious, it's clear that the team paid attention to how the likes of brackets, commas and semicolons are spaced and how they appear in back-end coding environments.
You can now spice up those iPad docs with Hoefler & Co. fonts
Sure, you're likely not buying $300 fonts just for your Pages and Keynote work on an iPad, but for those who've already splurged for a bite of Hoefler & Co.'s catalog, the option is pretty tempting. The popular type foundry has made purchased fonts available for use on devices running iOS 7, with the ability to download the requisite files directly from the site. A quick jaunt over to your Font Library page will show the options you've licensed with the option to "add to device" for an easy install. One thing's for sure: those cover letters typed out in a pinch are about to get a major aesthetic upgrade.
Mac font designer awarded AIGA Medal
Many Mac users probably don't give a second thought to the fonts on the screen, but they make up a critical part of the user experience in any GUI-based operating system. Fonts are so important that Steve Jobs even called them out during his famous Stanford commencement speech. Now Jonathan Hoefler, the designer of Hoefler Text (a font that has been part of every Mac OS since version 7.5) has been awarded the prestigious AIGA Medal, with his design/business partner Tobias Frere-Jones. The award is for contributions to "the typographic landscape through impeccable craftsmanship, skilled historical reference and insightful vernacular considerations." Hoefler designed the font exclusively for Apple back in 1991. H&FJ's site calls the font "a modern classic" and says: Hoefler Text resuscitated a number of other traditions that had once been central to fine printing: extended ligature sets, the engraved capitals of the early twentieth century and the arabesques of the renaissance. Hoefler Text even invented a few traditions of its own, such as case-specific punctuation and italic small caps, and worked to expand the reach of digital typography beyond the United States by including a wealth of foreign symbols and accents. To get an idea of what goes into creating a font, watch the video interview with the two AIGA honorees below. [via Daring Fireball]
