Matt,

We have an action item to change the order from the free fonts that are visually similar to the specified non-free fonts, I don't think* that this will change the experience for user without those fonts but we'd have to do some testing, it really comes down to if we specify Helvetica Neue, and a particular system thinks that should match a different free font than the one we thought was a best match.

Since we're so close to launch I'd prefer we don't make the change now, get some feedback from the current ordering, then change as needed, since that's the spirit of Beta Features.

Jared Zimmerman \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation

M : +1 415 609 4043 |

: @JaredZimmerman

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Matthew Flaschen <mflaschen@wikimedia.org> wrote:

On 10/27/2013 03:37 PM, Steven Walling wrote:

Many FOSS communities have dealt with the trade off between great-looking
fonts and freedom by commissioning foundries to get their own free fonts.
See also: Ubuntu, Android, and more. I've talked to the design team about
this idea, including perhaps getting a foundry to donate a unique font
stack in exchange for the publicity they'd get.

Do we really need our own, or are there already quality free fonts we can list? Has the design team taken a good look at the existing free fonts?

My general position is that it is not a violation of our principles to list a proprietary font in the stack. However, we should never *distribute* such a font.

I would prefer that free fonts appear first, and that is more workable if we can find good free fonts that suit our design needs. We should also ensure that the interface does not look worse in the future than it does today, when using free fonts.

Also, remember that font-matchers may substitute a free font when they are given a proprietary font name.

Matt Flaschen

CCing design

_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design