This is an experiment from 2011 in which the author produced a font by averaging all the fonts on their system.
I'm reposting it here because I noticed that this looks a lot like the uncanny valley produced when an image AI tries to make text, which makes perfect sense: it's a statistical average of fonts.
I've used Averia (Serif Libre, specifically) for at least a decade as my primary font for email, web pages in 'reader' mode, writing long-form text, etc. I find it extremely legible, and even calming.
Ironically, I've been a typographer for decades, both for print and online. Averia might seem an odd choice for someone intimately familiar with typographic theory/history and the vast catalog of possible fonts. But there's a certain pleasure and comfort in a font that is not trying to stand out or do anything particularly special.
The main reason it has this "calming" feature is because it's imperfect. By averaging different, sometimes incompatible font faces the result looks like a letter pressed on a soft paper, with all it's natural imperfections. It looks real.
Somehow I was not aware of Averia and used Old Timey for exact same reasons in the past.
On the other hand, someone here mentioned "Lato", which to me looks exactly how two robots would write holiday postcards to each other.
I’m surprised by how good it looks. This is really cool! I do feel like the Q and 4 characters need a little manual tweaking since the blur+threshold technique leaves some artifacts in the corners but those are such minor issues given how readable this font is overall. Love it.
Very cool project, thank you for sharing! To me, it raises some interesting questions around attribution of sources in derived works, in the same way that AI training does.
Does this font simply ... Not look good to anyone else? It is visually kind of uncomfortable to behold. Maybe it's because it's a bit blurry feeling.
It sort of suggests to me that there's a lot going on with typeface design that we take for granted.
Edit: on closer inspection, the letter forms are kind of all over the place. The humps on the 'm' are lopsided, letter heights are sort of random. I think it's an interesting idea but to make it a more useful font would take a lot of manual fine tuning.
This is really cool. There's something very pleasing about precisely how unobtrusive it feels. You can also view the specifically serif-only and sans-serif-only versions here:
I think it would be really cool if a designer used these as a starting point for overall metrics, but then regularized and cleaned them up to exhibit consistent proportions and elements from character to character, without the wobbly parts. It really feels like it would become an ideal font family for reader mode, for journaling, just any time you want to focus on content and have a font that just "gets out of the way".
What I really love about both of them is that they instantly give you the impression of a real print made with real ink. Especially Averia - which makes sense, since it was averaged from all sorts of different fonts - has a lot of, for the lack of better word, excess fat on it. Something that may happen accidently while pressing "precise" font letter on soft paper.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 52.5 ms ] threadI'm reposting it here because I noticed that this looks a lot like the uncanny valley produced when an image AI tries to make text, which makes perfect sense: it's a statistical average of fonts.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/avería
Ironically, I've been a typographer for decades, both for print and online. Averia might seem an odd choice for someone intimately familiar with typographic theory/history and the vast catalog of possible fonts. But there's a certain pleasure and comfort in a font that is not trying to stand out or do anything particularly special.
Somehow I was not aware of Averia and used Old Timey for exact same reasons in the past.
On the other hand, someone here mentioned "Lato", which to me looks exactly how two robots would write holiday postcards to each other.
It sort of suggests to me that there's a lot going on with typeface design that we take for granted.
Edit: on closer inspection, the letter forms are kind of all over the place. The humps on the 'm' are lopsided, letter heights are sort of random. I think it's an interesting idea but to make it a more useful font would take a lot of manual fine tuning.
http://iotic.com/averia/preview.php
I think it would be really cool if a designer used these as a starting point for overall metrics, but then regularized and cleaned them up to exhibit consistent proportions and elements from character to character, without the wobbly parts. It really feels like it would become an ideal font family for reader mode, for journaling, just any time you want to focus on content and have a font that just "gets out of the way".
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lato
[1]: https://research.public.services/typography/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/957820/Across_the_Grooves...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/738650/Seers_Isle/
What I really love about both of them is that they instantly give you the impression of a real print made with real ink. Especially Averia - which makes sense, since it was averaged from all sorts of different fonts - has a lot of, for the lack of better word, excess fat on it. Something that may happen accidently while pressing "precise" font letter on soft paper.
[1] https://webonastick.com/fonts/old-timey-mono/