Another big win for a more readable web! Monotype has just released nine new typeface families on Fonts.com. Adapted from pre-existing designs, each has been painstakingly modified to perform better at small sizes. And not just on the web ... in all digital publishing environments – ebooks, mobile applications, and digital pubs.
“Reading on screen is simply a fact of life for most of us today,” says Steve Matteson Creative Type Director at Monotype. “And for consumer devices to serve us best, the text needs to be easy and enjoyable to read no matter what screen you’re using.”
The collection
This inaugural set not only includes redesigned classic favorites, like the Baskerville, Galliard, and Sabon typefaces (which were originally designed for print and later made available on the web) but also newer designs such as Malabar and Ysobel, which were born in the screen era.
Subtle, but powerful, improvements
These rebooted typefaces have been specially crafted to display clearly on the full range of reading devices – even E Ink® screens. Improvements include richer contrast, even color, and slightly taller lowercase characters.
Lowercase characters are now taller, and hairline features and serifs are heavier.
They’ve increased the spacing between characters so they don’t appear to collide when set small.
Counters of letters like ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘b’ and ‘g’ are now more open to help maintain character shape and legibility.
The ratio of thick to thin strokes were adjusted.
If you’re a firm favorite of the original designs, fear not. Despite the modifications, each face in the collection still closely resembles its predecessor and retains that family feel. The new typefaces also include advance features, like small caps and old style figures, to support typographic precision and flexibility.
Technological tweaks and integration options
In addition, they’ve hand-hinted every typeface in the collection and used Monotype’s Edge tuning technology to create smoother, sharper curved and angled contours on each character. This means less blurring and more readable text, no matter the platform, format or device.
Not only is the eText series perfect for your web designs, but they can also be:
- bundled within the source code of an e-book or digital publication title, ensuring that readers will experience the design, branding and layout you intended; and
- embedded in devices for use as system fonts, which can then be custom-tuned for optimal display and performance.
Give them a go in Typecast
If you have a Typecast account, you can experiment with all nine of these super-useful typefaces straight away. Just type ‘eText’ in the fonts menu to pull up the collection and try them out on real copy. There are also some great pairing suggestions, as well as general tips for picking body fonts, in our Q&A with Steve.
Not only can you experiment with them straight away in our Typecast app, you can use any of them for free on your websites if you’re on one of our Fonts.com bundles.
Sign in Now to try them out and create sharp paragraphs readers will appreciate.