San Francisco (2014 typeface)

For the 1984 Macintosh typeface, see San Francisco (1984 typeface).
San Francisco
Category Neo-grotesque
Foundry Apple Inc.
Date released 2015
Variations SF, SF Compact

San Francisco is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface made by Apple Inc. It was first released to developers on November 18, 2014.[1][2] It was used first as the system typeface of the Apple Watch, and later replaced Helvetica Neue as the system typeface of OS X and iOS with OS X El Capitan and iOS 9.[3][4][5] It is also the system typeface of tvOS, starting with the 4th generation Apple TV.[6] It is the first new typeface designed at Apple in nearly 20 years.[1]

Variants

The San Francisco typeface has two variants: "SF" for OS X, iOS, and tvOS; and "SF Compact" for watchOS.[4] The main difference is that the sides of letters with round shapes, such as o, e, and s, are round in SF, whereas they are flat in SF Compact. The flat sides allow the letters to have more space between them, thereby making the text more legible at small sizes, which is particularly important for the Apple Watch.[7] Both SF and SF Compact each have two optical sizes: "display" for large and "text" for small text. Compared to display, the letters in text have larger apertures and more generous letter-spacing. The operating system automatically chooses the display optical size for sizes of at least 20 points, and text otherwise.[7]

Licensing

The typeface is licensed to registered third-party developers for the design and development of applications for iOS, OS X and watchOS.[4] It is also used on the 2015 MacBook as the keyboard typeface (replacing VAG Rounded[8]) and in recent Apple branding including that for Apple Watch and Apple Music.

References

  1. 1 2 Brownlee, John (November 19, 2014). "Apple Releases Its Most Important Typeface in 20 Years". Fast Company. Retrieved 2015-06-13.
  2. ↑ Williams, Owen (November 18, 2014). "Meet Apple's new font, designed for its smartwatch". The Next Web. Retrieved June 13, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Typography". Apple Watch Human Interface Guidelines. Apple Inc. Retrieved 2015-06-13.
  4. 1 2 3 "Fonts". Apple Developer. Apple Inc. Retrieved 2015-06-13.
  5. ↑ Stinson, Liz (June 9, 2015). "Why Apple Abandoned the World’s Most Beloved Typeface". Wired. Retrieved 2015-06-13.
  6. ↑ Apple (2015). "Visual Design - Apple TV Human Interface Guidelines - Apple Developer". Retrieved on 2015-10-04 from https://developer.apple.com/tvos/human-interface-guidelines/visual-design/.
  7. 1 2 Cavedoni, Antonio (June 12, 2015). "Introducing the New System Fonts". WWDC 2015. Apple Inc.
  8. ↑ Wright, Mic (March 9, 2015). "The new MacBook shows San Francisco is more than just the Apple Watch font". The Next Web. Retrieved 2015-05-29.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, January 09, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.