FontDiscovery 🖼️ 65: A Neutral-Tone Font For Your Next UI
I'm Hua, a designer and bootstrapping founder building Typogram, a brand design tool. As part of running Typogram, I create this digestible weekly guide with fonts, colors, and design ideas to help founders, creators, and makers step up their game in marketing and get creative!
Hi Everyone đź‘‹
Thanks so much for everyone’s support in the previous week!
Because we have put our sweat and tears into Typogram, introducing it to the world for the first time (formally) was nerve-wracking. What would people think? How would they respond? It’s a little bit like going to a new school for the first time when I was a little kid - I wasn’t sure what to expect.
In the end, the launch went well –We got pre-orders! (Thank you, Elena 🙂) and finished number ten on Product Hunt. (if you preordered from FontDiscovery, please let me know, I would love to give you a thank-you shout-out! )
What’s next? I will be writing and creating more content for Typogram. We are also looking for podcasts, websites, and youtube channels that feature stories about entrepreneurs. If you know someone looking to feature stories about entrepreneurs, please let me know. We’d love to share our journey!
In This Issue…
- Font of the Week: Public Sans
- Design Idea of the Week: The Emotional Journey of Creating Anything Great
- Color Inspiration of the Week: Graphic Sunrise
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Font of the Week
Go Public with Public Sans
At the beginnings of our newsletter, we covered Libre Franklin . It is one of my favorite open-sourced fonts because it is full of quirky little details, and I love the calligraphic touch this sans serif brings.
Public Sans is the objective counterpart of Libre Franklin, it is inspired partly by Libre Franklin’s design. However, Public Sans has a neutral tone optimized for readability. Because of this, Public Sans has minimal quirks, void of any stand-out visual characteristics.
Font Detail
- Minimized quirks and narrower than Libre Franklin
- 9 weights and italics!
- Available in variable font format
img: Public Sans comparing to Libre Franklin
Img: Different weights of Public Sans
Specific Usage Tips
How to use Public Sans for logo?
Despite the lack of quirk, there are leftover calligraphic touches that give this found a humanistic touch. Public Sans is neutral yet inviting to read. The medium, semibold, and bold weights are great for logos. On the other hand, black weight is a little too bold to use if your logo contains letters with small counter spaces like lowercase “e.”
How to use Public Sans for marketing and branding?
Public Sans is very versatile. It works well for UI, headlines, and text. Due to the lack of visual quirks, Public Sans doesn’t interrupt reading flows. Its neutral tone objectively communicates a message with clarity and optimum reading experience, which is excellent for UI for web apps and complex interfaces.
mindvue used Public Sans as its text font. source: FontsInUse
Design Idea of the Week
The Emotional Journey of Creating Anything Great
This infographic has stuck with me ever since I randomly stumple upon it. Whether it’s a business, a website, an app, or creative work, creating something of your own is never simple. It takes a lot of tryings, starting-overs, pivoting, and perseverance. It pairs nicely with the quote from Ira Glass at the beginning of this post.
source: x company Medium, original graphic by John Saddington
Color Inspiration of the Week
Graphic Sunrise
This week, enjoy this gradient color palette of sunrise for your creative projects!
Florentine #64778A | Hydrangea #7D96AC | Hibiscus #A47380 | Red Wood #B7948B
Jargon Buster
Letter Spacing (Tracking)
The adjustment of space between letters, evenly across the whole word.
Want more? check out the jargon buster glossary page.
Creative Prompt
Create something with Public Sans!
Link Exchange
Community Weekly
Community Weekly is a publication for creators who want to get out of algorithm jail and build a home for their creations on their own soil (usually discord). Subscribe for weekly updates on Community space and Anna's journey into building her own community.
Thank you
…for reading and hanging out here this week! Public Sans is available here.
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Have more questions about design and fonts?
Please email me hua@typogram.co or find me on Twitter at @HuaTweets.
You can also read the past issues on Typogram's blog.
