Anyone who knows a decent amount about font history has heard of famous fonts made for the computer screen. Georgia and Verdana were made for the pixel grid, for instance, and they served their purpose well. Have there been any advances since their release in 1993 and 1996, respectively?
The recent article “Whoever Said Sans Serifs Were the Best Digital Typefaces?” in AIGA’s blog, Eye on Design, features Portada, one of our 2016 releases. Portada is a serif family born to perform in digital environments with the same levels of legibility as a sans serif.
Many experiments have been made to conquer the pixel grid, but the common wisdom is that sans serif typefaces are better on screens than serifs. By the same token, our current digital screens have improved drastically since the ’90s.
According to the article, our Portada typeface works just as well as a sans for screen reading, and can replace the old “made for screen” standbys like Georgia and Verdana. Another benefit to Portada is its great balance of subservience and personality that makes reading enjoyable without overwhelming the text with too much of its own voice. And for those who design in more than the Latin-based languages, Portada is already a multiscript family: Arabic, Latin, Thai, the upcoming Cyrillic, and more scripts on the way. These are things the other typefaces can’t claim, making it a better choice in the modern day.
TypeTogether is an indie type foundry committed to excellence in type design with a focus on editorial use. Additionally, TypeTogether creates custom type design for corporate use. We invite you to browse our library of retail fonts or contact us to discuss custom type design projects.
