“For the first time ever, Apple is ditching Lucida Grande as the OS X system font in favor of Helvetica Neue, which also happens to be the iOS system font,” Suzanne LaBarre reports for Fast Company. “For an operating system that’s used by 80 million people, that’s no small thing. Will it make reading on desktop computers easier? Harder?”
“We asked Tobias Frere-Jones, the famed typeface designer who has worked with some of the world’s best publications and design shops, to offer his insights on what this change means for consumers,” LaBarre reports. “In his view, Apple might have made a mistake.”
Apple’s desktop and mobile operating systems have been gradually converging for some time. So it was inevitable that one typographic palette would displace the other. With OS X 10.10, Mac desktops will sport Helvetica everywhere. But I had really hoped it would be the other way around, with the iPhone taking a lesson from the desktop, and adopt Lucida Grande. Check the lock screen on your iPhone. You’ll see Helvetica there, a half-inch tall or larger, and it looks good. Problem is, there aren’t many other places where it looks as good. Despite its grand reputation, Helvetica can’t do everything. It works well in big sizes, but it can be really weak in small sizes… For any text, but particularly in interfaces, our eyes need typefaces that cooperate rather than resist. A super-sharp Retina Display might help, but the real issue is the human eye, and I haven’t heard of any upgrades on the way. – Tobias Frere-Jones
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Tobias and Jonathan’s Excellent Adventure ignites Font War: Inside the design world’s $20 million divorce – April 9, 2014
Typeface designer: Apple’s Jony Ive’ s iOS 7 font ‘beautiful as typeface, totally sucks as an interface’ – November 8, 2013
Beyond Helvetica Neue: The real story behind fonts in iOS 7 – July 9, 2013
Jony Ive changes his mind, thickens system-wide font in iOS 7 beta 3 – July 9, 2013
They say “for the first time ever”, but that’s not true. Ludica Grande is the third (?) was major system font used by Mac OS.
I’m not a huge fan of the font switch either, but time will tell how well it works. I’m just glad they have common sense, unlike Microsoft’s use of the illegible Verdana for years in their OS. I never understood that choice.
Let us not forget the fugliest of the fugly: Arial (and Comic Sans)!
Well Arial is just Helvetica recut for supposedly superior web use. As good as anything else I always find for legibility.
Why don’t they come up with scalable legibility in a special system font? Surely it’s doable.
I won’t argue on the issue of web legibility, since I’m not an authority,but visually, Arial is just appalling. There is an online quiz for visual design professionals and fans, “Spot the difference” between the two fonts:
http://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/index.php
Just seeing the iconic logos re-done in Arial makes it obvious how visually bad Arial is compared to Helvetica.
The most common story about Arial is that Microsoft hired someone to quickly do a Helvetica-lookalike font for their upcoming Windows OS, in order to avoid paying potentially massive licensing fees for Helvetica.
Helvetica on standard 72dpi screeens or even 96dpi screens is really inferior to Helvetica, which is a better print typeface.
Helvetica Neue, designed for the screen, beats out Arial.
Please reread your post.
Helvetica Neue was created in 1983. I thought the first typefaces created specifically for digital screens were Georgia and Verdana.
Correct.
But that won’t get in the way of speculative interpretation.
Okay, after taking that test, I have a new respect for Arial. (but not Microsoft ;-))
I took the test and got 17 out of 20. The only ones that were hard were the all caps with few different letter forms. For the rest, Arial is visibly inferior to my eye.
Absolutely nothing wrong with Arial. Comic Sans, however, is absolutely horrid.
No, it is correct. This is the first font change for Mac OS X. The original Mac, through OS 7 was Chicago, and OS 8 and OS 9 were Charcoal.
“might” means, I don’t know.
1. Find and expert
2. Ask opinion
3. Shape response to sound like Apple is F@#$ Up.
In the article, replace “Helvetica Neue” with “Wingdings” Does it make any difference?
Yes.
Seriously now some unknown dude, after an unknown doctor is teaching Apple what font to choose?
It wouldn’t be for Apple we would still use the black screen with one unique font.
I am using Yosemite for 2 days now and it never felt so natural and pure. Use before you critic.
Hardly unknown.
He is very much an undisputed global expert in the field.
Unknown to you, so you ignore his talent and reputation. It is not all about you.
“Never felt so natural and pure. Use before you critic.”
Simply put, I don’t have to be a chicken to know when an egg is rotten.
That said, enjoy, enjoy.
The system font has no impact on most of what the user will be doing on a Mac. There aren’t large amounts of text used in the OS, just menus, labels, a few words here and there. Web sites usually specify the font, and for rare cases when they don’t, the user can specify any default font he or she wishes. Documents control the font. Actually, I think Helvetica Neue helps get the system out of the way so the user can focus on the work. While I Frere-Jones qualifications as a designer of type faces are unquestionable, I don’t know how much experience he has had designing operating system interfaces.
So let’s wait and see how Yosemite looks when we can get our hands on it in a real world situation before we start writing a bunch of articles about mistakes. Sheesh. Give me a break.
Looks fine to me on my partition running Yosemite. Definitely different, but a change for the better in my porcine opinion.
Looks absolutely fine running Yosemite on my MBA13… Initially it took a lil getting used to.. but I like it!
“The system font has no impact on most of what the user will be doing on a Mac”. System fonts are seen in every single application on an operating system. Helvetica Neue, not being designed for the screen, puts the system in the way as now legibility is reduced.
It doesn’t matter that there are large amounts of text. I completely agree with Frere-Jones. What he’s talking about it legibility at small sizes. Just because there aren’t a lot of words, it doesn’t mean they should be difficult to read. People rarely change defaults.
Ive is an industrial designer so he’s even more out of his league. I’d tend to go with the typography expert.
Apple taught the world desktop publishing
Aldus taught the world desktop publishing.
Aldus certainly was enabled by the existence of the affordable Mac and the LaserWriter, wasn’t it?
Absolutely, and exclusively. But in the same way, you wouldn’t say Apple transformed photo editing. The Mac gave life to PageMaker, which then destroyed the typesetting business overnight. Then Adobe eventually destroyed PageMaker.
They are claiming better readability. I hope so. But OS7 gave us the stupid “cool” thin design and stupid translucence that made my lock screen photo illegible. (Once in a market, a woman returned my phone I had dropped because I kept my picture on the lock screen.). Apple is starting to do more stupid things like the Beats crap. A lot of people think tattoos are “cool.” But I sold all my AAPL stock in May and am walking away.
Wow. I’ve seen this thin design opinion (and your later post about “nerdy” skewmorphism [sic]) already today.
Thanks. Again. Not.
You sold your Apple stock because you didn’t like the look of your phone? Now that’s a unique way to make investment decisions. I guess you’ll get what you deserve.
You’ve never owned any AAPL and you’re walking away because you can’t afford a car. Go away troll.
I find Helvetica Neue far easier to parse than Lucida Grande. And I’ll trust my own eyeballs over some typeface designer.
Bring back the nerdy skewmorphism!
I happen to agree with you, btw. In spite of dinging you above for repeating it.
🙂
While I agree it is head and shoulders above the current offering — kick it up notches to 3D.
*Sigh* Everybody has to find a negative aspect to report on, or invent one to report on.
Stooopid is the new ‘clever’…
How else would they get paid by Samsung?
I always liked Garamond
Chicago all the way, baby!
Why not Courier, then?
I installed the Yosemite preview, and on some of the screens in the initial setup (keyboard, wifi, iCloud stuff, etc.) I almost couldn’t read the 48pt-sized words like “with, and “will” and others where there are a bunch of skinny letters next to each other (i l j t etc.). Once you are into the desktop it’s different, and on my 13″ non-retina, a little fuzzy, but it’s not too bad. The text in some dialog boxes and some buttons are a little small, since the font is shorter, and a little hard to read, but maybe we (developers) can get them to do something about it. Overall it’s kinda nice looking, but very white compared to ML/Mav like iOS7 was.
Now there is always more than one reason for eyeball wrenching and brain freezing. The new Os is best viewed on a retina screen, so we all have to go and by new machines. Just another thing I have to reverse for the hundreds of customers I support that have been using Mac’s long before they became available to by from the lowest white goods retailer. I have updated my ipad but so happy still to this day that I did not update my iPhone. What would Steve have done, he was very passionate about fonts but in a big multinational worth over $500 billion maybe he would have been drowned out.
As I said above looks fine on 13 in MBA. Was fuzzy till I put on my glasses was only problem. Passes you my glasses 🙂
That’s really bad then as one of the big things with OS X was the excellent and easily readable system font.
I have to agree with the sentiment of Tobias Frere-Jones in the article. While Lucida Grande is banal it is uberly functional, and worked well on desktop and mobile.
Helvetica Neue has definitely got issues at small point sizes and lighter weights. Unless you pump it up via system preferences, legibility does suffer. I don’t “hate” it as some choose to say but I don’t think it is the best option.
Apple should commission a new custom font that caters to the smaller mobile screens and to the desktop. Even if it is a hybrid of both typefaces with adjusted counters and kerning / tracking details taken into account.
Seems like everything else is so mindful and this is an afterthought almost.
we’ll see what happens…
with 1.5+ readers or without!
ha
I’m using it now. It’s fantastic. Reading anything is not a problem.
8 or yosemite? or both?
Yep.
iOS 7 is hard on the eyes- maybe not for a 20 year old- but just wait. Of course, “Jony Ive” doesn’t care- he is all about fashion.
Wrong. Fashion is decoration. Design is about function and there is no one in the world more knowledgable about design integrity than I’ve.
Ives is an idiot – pure style over substance. He chases the latest fad (flat is cool dudz!) and tries to make it look like it was his own. Unfortunately the resulting mess is the most annoying parts of windows vista coupled with windows 8.0. That isn’t vision – unless short-sighted counts as visionary now days.
It was Jobs and Forstall who kept him restrained and balanced his desire for excessive minimalism with beauty (Jobs) and familiarity (Forstall).
Yes, indeed.
Unfortunately, the sober common sense restraint team is no longer with Apple.
Ive designed some gawdawful beige boxes before the return of Jobs.
Despite what others say, you are absolutely correct Jony is about fashion combined with a safety dance.
Helvetica is about as old a font as the borrowed Bauhaus designs in iOS7, 8 and Yosemite.
Retreat to the past instead of pushing the envelope of the future. Sad it has come to this with all their idle cash.
It’s also a safe political move in the minimalist design communities and abstract art factories they spawn (i.e. Art News). No hashtag protest pages to worry about from the intolerant left.
The font is extremely sterile, cold, very hard to read particularly in smaller sizes and a modern derivative (industry term: recut) of the original Helvetica. And it remains wildly POPULAR. Hence, my agreement about fashion favoritism.
Not a smart visual communication typeface for all ages, unfortunately.
Nothing new here … except maybe an Apple retreat from Steve’s keen sense of legibility and visual navigation design skills.
“Retreat to the past instead of pushing the envelope of the future.”
“No hashtag protest pages to worry about from the intolerant left.”
Nice try on making this a political statement, but to avoid contradiction you should have said intolerant right, as that first sentence could have come straight out of Webster’s definition of conservative.
Are you serious?
This is of course utter bullshit. Helvetica is the most successful sans serif font ever and a massive influence on practically everything that followed. It was specifically designed to be a modern clear and communicative typeface for its time and transformed type design. That stands true today when it has been reworked recut and incorporated into every aspect of design all around us. It is a design classic and survived the test of time for a reason . You can believe this self motivated clown of you can believe the millions of designers who have exploited its purity of design since its inception not only in large format and signage but in every size and type style in in every aspect of design. It’s flexibility and simplicity is its secret of success and is the most exploited sans typeface for brochures, flyers, maps, charts you name it at small sizes for good reason, legibility. Therefore they must have dug deep to find this maverick to claim the sort of ill informed garbage referred to because all the evidence would ridicule his comments in the real and digital worlds.
I disagree with you, but you’re safe from harm.
Next time you stop by a newsstand, whether digital or dead tree, take a look at the BODY COPY.
Over 90% of body copy is serif type. Over 90% of type you read in any given publication is body copy.
Case closed. 🙂
Response meant for DC.
Helvetica is a continuation of the grotesk tradition of typefaces; it’s not a new face. What faces has Helvetica influenced since 1957, or since 1983 when Neue was cut? I can’t think of too many. And don’t say Arial! There are far more humanist faces being created these days, and they stem from the likes of Gill Sans and Futura. A better font for OSX and iOS would be something like Avenir Next or Myriad, which are far easier to read big or small. Why do most books and newspapers use serif faces for body copy? There is a reason. Try reading a book in Helvetica 55 Roman or even let alone Helvetica 45 Light sometime and see how far you get before your eyes tire — no matter how you play with the kerning.
Just so people who disagree with tradition can kill me:
Serif fonts are for reading. Example: Articles, books, comments. They are the most legible fonts by definition.
Sans-serif fonts are for just about everything else, where legibility is of secondary concern.
People who don’t know any better use san-serif fonts for everything because the look modern and kewl. But they generally suck for reading. (Ya, so kill me).
There are some interesting cross-over fonts that I enjoy and use for reading. My favorite is Baker Signet. Sadly, Coca-Cola has cast some evil spell over it such that it is not allowed to be made into any font style but roman. They reserve using italic Baker Signet for themselves. Beats me how that’s legal. But there are some slightly similar fonts for working around Coke’s stranglehold.
Use your fonts wisely children.
BTW: Whatever happened to Espy-Sans? It was terrific.
(Apple used Espy for eWorld, their son-of-AOL dial-in service that crashed and burned after a couple years. BTW: It was Apple who invented the AOL interface and network backbone).
What a load of crap!
I’ve been in the design industry all my life, got a distinction in typography, have won international design awards, have created design for some of the biggest brands in the world and he’s TOTALLY WRONG.
Helvetica was chosen because of the large x height of the typeface ?(x height being the distance between the baseline and the total of the lower case letters).
A font with a large x height like Helvetica is the best font for legibility for small size use.
Lucida Grand has a slightly smaller x height and is therefore less legible at smaller sizes.
Apple chose the right font not just because of the large x height, but because of the global standardisation and weights of font available witching the Helvetica family – which opens up versatility of use should they want to.
Go back to art college and learn the basics of typography!
Basics of typography teach you that x-height in and of itself is not always an indicator of readability.
Fonts come in thin, roman, condensed, bold, extra bold, black and ultra, to name a few, depending upon the type foundry.
Then you add in the equation of PUBLISHED type SIZE.
Published size is THE indicator of how it affects legibility in a font family. Font classifications exist in publishing, for example: display type, art type, body type and agate type to name a few — all have a purpose.
Blanket legibility statements are misleading.
The thin font Apple switched to is STILL extremely hard to read, particularly in smaller sizes on smaller devices like iPhones on light backgrounds.
Wake up from the fanboy fog, people. 🙂
Peace. 🙂
Bring back bitmapped Chicago! /s/
The font I really want them to experiment with is Gotham. That don’t has a very slick, modern, urbane style that fits Apple to a tee. Gotham could easily be the Helvetica of the 21st Century.
James, Gotham is a font with generous apertures, making for excellent readability when run small (say, under 14pt). It’s all about aperture: the white space within and about individual letters that creates enough variation so the eye doesn’t get lazy, to put it very simply. There are many other fonts that do the trick, such as Avenir Next, Brandon Grotesque or the very recent Azo Sans, based on the geometry of the golden mean, or Apple’s advertising house font, Myriad. Plenty from which to choose. Helvetica, which works as a display font, can’t do everything, and people should stop thinking it can.
I used to change my system font to Sand before OS X. I also farted around with all-caps fonts just for fun. Of course, I also changed the alert sound with a system crash to a maniacal laugh and the icon from a bomb to an extended middle finger. All this crying about system fonts would never have happened if we still had ResEdit.
Not buying it. One of the reasons Helvetica is so ubiquitous is that it’s easily readable and pleasant on the eyes. The fact is that Lucida Grande worked 10 years ago, but it looks dated now. Design evolves & goes through cycles, and right now the consensus seems to be that simpler is better. Getting rid of needless ornamentation provides a cleaner way to view your content.
Also: I’m pretty sure that all Serif typefaces are not more readable by default.
Lucida Grande looks dated after 10 years, OK fine.
Helvetica from 1957 does not?
Full belly laugh, sorry …
“… looks dated now”
Sorry I base system font choices on “how easy it is to read”.
So if another font comes along and in actual testing across all ages, it can be read more reliably than Lucida Grande, then make a case to change the font.
Changing because it’s cool is not a good reason.
Good thinking.
Aqua that you could “lick it’ days are over.
Font mania trumps audio mania
Not attuned with audio mania. But font mania — a big oh yeah.
The audiophiles are not a group to be trifled with, they are engineers, more hardened than academics and intolerant of lesser ears. I never quite understood them, but on the other hand the visual grace in typography has always entranced me. I must confess to being a little vexed at the ultra lite Helvetica font in iOS 7 — just because I firmly believe that Jony Ive insisted on using it to flaunt the superior display technology of the retina screen. In my opinion he overplayed his hand.
Certainly, flaunting a retina display to communicate the thinnest of fonts as legible, well, is more a stretch on smaller devices, older devices and older eyes.
If I had to choose between the two dumbest Apple visual design mistakes, would prefer a legible font and live (ignore) the flat uninspiring icons.
Audiophiles, meet typephiles. 🙂
Holy Crapballs does this guy ever have his head up his arse? Which Helvetica Neue variation is he farting around with that looks small and what is under 9pt in the entire interface?
Helvetica Neue takes up less space for the same readability – hence it use on iOS. Now that we’re gonna have continuity and teeny phone windows on our Mac it only makes sense that they would change the fonts to match iOS or it would be called discontinuity – and Lucida Grande does not fit well on mobile.
Sorry, but iOS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, Apple was using the wrong font then??
Apple and Steve kept the “human interface” as priority one. Someone at Apple is forgetting that history.
Well said.
“Less space for the same readability.”
That depends upon the published SIZE. That depends on the size of the screen delivering published size.
God is in the details.