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Shantell Sans (2023)

https://shantellsans.com/process
355aleda145 | | 42 | HN
chokolad | parent | next
Somewhere in the middle of the article, I stumbled upon a multilanguage sample and noticed that this font has wonderful Cyrillic glyphs. In my previous experience with new fonts Cyrillic usually is not as great as the latin part of the font. The exception being fonts done by foundries based in cyrillic speaking countries, like ParaType fonts [1]. Well, the last third of the article goes into the details on how they achieved it.

[1] https://www.paratype.com/fonts/pt/yefimov-sans?tab=gallery

0x69420 | parent | next
the formality slider (play with it at the google fonts page linked in the article[0]) is genuinely one of the coolest uses of a variable font axis i've seen in recent memory. it feels like we're witnessing the slow and steady vindication of metafont.

[0] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Shantell+Sans

bradrn | parent | next
Typotheque’s Dash has a very similar variable axis, though they call it ‘Speed’: https://www.typotheque.com/fonts/dash-casual. (For some reason you need to click on the ‘Variable’ box in order to see the full variable range.)
jxf | parent | next
I'm not familiar with Metafont -- is this what you're referencing? https://ctan.org/pkg/metafont?lang=en
WillAdams | root | parent | next
Yes, that is METAFONT.

You'll find it more accessible via METAPOST, and there have been font designs made using it. Better starting link is:

https://davidcarlisle.github.io/uk-tex-faq/FAQ-mfptutorials....

delta_p_delta_x | root | parent
Not the OP, but probably (please correct me if I'm wrong...) Knuth's claim was that a font's metrics could be described as geometric transformations and equations. I believe most of the TeX typefaces were described with Metafont.
dostick | parent | next
That’s the coolest thing!And “bounce” slider. What a time to be alive… I wonder if there are more fonts like that with special adjustments. Still waiting for technology to allow handwritten font with true randomness.
tasuki | root | parent
One of my favourite fonts is Recursive[0]. It has even more variable axes than Shantell Sans: apart from the usual weight and slant it also has a "Casual" axis as well as "Monospace" (which is continuous from fully proportional to fully monospace). I use Recursive as my terminal font, and in many other places. You can also play with it on Google Fonts[1].

[0]: https://www.recursive.design/

[1]: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Recursive

merlindru | root | parent
Recursive is terrifically legible, especially with Casual all the way on.

I couldn't tell you why, but reading code feels much, much more natural with it than with most other fonts.

Perhaps it's the high degree of separation because every character looks meaningfully different?

The "kerning" (or whatever the visual space between letters is called in monospace fonts) is also among the best.

amelius | parent
Wait, does more informality mean that individual glyphs for the same character can be different even within the same sentence?
WillAdams | root | parent
Unfortunately not, that would require a random axis, or a contextual swapping based on adjacent letterforms.

Prof. Hermann Zapf's eponymous Zapfino has the latter --- I even included an animation of it in my paper on it:

http://ftp.tug.org/TUGboat/tb24-2/tb77adams.pdf

mercacona | parent | next
The font is great. What I miss is a step forward in technology: variable glyphs. The feeling of reading a handwritten text is lost when the letters have always the same shape. If it were possible to add 5-6 little variations for each letter and alternate them randomly, it would be awesome.
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xyzzy_plugh | parent | next
Wow somehow I've never come across this font, and I've done a lot with comic-sans-adjacent fonts.

This font, however, is by far the most beautiful one I've encountered yet.

watchful_moose | parent | next
The parallels to comic sans are so obvious that first thing I did in the article is Ctrl-F "comic", because my first thought was: how much further has this taken the concept.

The distribution of mentions of Comic Sans in the article is revealing: there are a bunch of mentions at around the 30% mark (in which they acknowledge the obvious heritage), and then barely after that. This font really does go further. Beautiful!

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jhack | parent | next
Is it weird that I want a mono version if this? Looks really great, really well designed.
zimpenfish | parent | next
I'm a (currently, at least) big fan of Recursive Mono Casual[0] which I believe I downloaded from Google Fonts[1].

[0] https://www.recursive.design

[1] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Recursive?preview.script=L...

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Hasnep | parent
I recently came across Annotation Mono which has less of the informality of Shantell Sans, but still has a handwritten feel.

https://qwerasd205.github.io/AnnotationMono/

largbae | parent | next
Dyslexic daughter gave a big thumbs up, she definitely prefers this to Roboto in the example.
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jamwise | parent | next
First time seeing it and this is already my favourite hand-written font. Great work!
aboardRat4 | parent | next
Wow, this is so ugly that it's hard to even describe how ugly it is.
jgord | parent | next
gorgeous piece of human-computer engineering art.

superb.

totally usable in contexts where comic sans might be seen as kind of mocking.

aetherspawn | parent | next
Do you think a corporate brand would get away with using this font site-wide?

In an increasingly sterile and AI world, is a human centric approach a good thing albeit possibly unprofessional by current standards?

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glerk | parent | next
I like it! Somehow balances playfulness and readability. Thanks for sharing.
replwoacause | parent | next
A beautiful font, and a beautiful gift from the creators. Very nice!
mbostock | parent | next
tldraw uses this font. It’s a great fit for emulating hand-written notes on a whiteboard; feels human.
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