IBM Plex – A new typeface

https://www.ibm.com/plex/

by uptown • 8 years ago

240 170 8 years ago

Anyone else find these sort of sites annoying to navigate? How am I supposed to know how much I need to scroll down? Is the site broken or do I just need to scroll more?

Overall, I'm surprised it's taken IBM this long to put out a font.

zackkitzmiller• 8 years ago

Incredibly.

CabSauce• 8 years ago

This might be the worst version of this type of page I've ever seen.

ggregoire• 8 years ago

I usually think comments on HN about UX are overreacted, but wow, this website is definitely awful.

justherefortart• 8 years ago

Whole reason I came here to comment.

Mononokay• 8 years ago

It's been around for at least a year.

dharness• 8 years ago

Yeah wow what a horrible website...

csours2• 8 years ago

It's almost like the UI designer took it as a personal challenge to see how horrible they could make the experience.

alonmower• 8 years ago

I read this comment thinking it was a "typical HN overreaction" but then looked at the page and oh my god you couldn't be more right

losteric• 8 years ago

Or maybe they hired an animator as their UI designer.

Terribledactyl• 8 years ago

It's a natural extension of awful PowerPoints

ihuman• 8 years ago

I can't even use the arrow keys, page up/down, or home/end to navigate with my keyboard. I hate the amount of noise I make scrolling through websites like this.

weego• 8 years ago

I've never experienced a site where you can't scroll back up before. And then the navigation is a tiny strip of colour that's already closed so you have no signposting as to what the hell is going on? Kudos on the most counter intuitive website I have ever seen.

distinctly IBM indeed.

stefan_• 8 years ago

It feels like a debug system - like I'm single-stepping animations for their "pixel perfect" correctness.

There is a reason they didn't stop improving on animations after the flip book was invented.

lobo_tuerto• 8 years ago

It's an exercise into negative UX from IBM labs.

warent2• 8 years ago

Am I the only one that finds this page clunky and awkward to navigate?

draw_down• 8 years ago

No, in fact literally the only other top level comment says the same exact thing.

warent2• 8 years ago

Our posts were seconds apart, I didn't even see it until after I made mine

dexterdog2• 8 years ago

If you didn't there would be something wrong with you.

dssu• 8 years ago

This is a great example of how not to implement a scrolling website

uptown• 8 years ago

Here's the download page if you want to avoid the horrific-to-navigate site:

https://github.com/IBM/plex/releases/tag/v1.0.1

SloopJon• 8 years ago

Any idea why they recommend TrueType over TrueType? Is that a general recommendation, or something specific to this typeface?

Edit: From BoldMonday's comment in issue 103: "TrueTypes can be - and in the case of IBM Plex are - specifically hinted for screen. OpenTypes with PostScript outlines are not able to do that."

CharlesW• 8 years ago

FWIW: "Increasing resolutions and new approaches to screen rendering have reduced the requirement of extensive TrueType hinting. Apple's rendering approach on macOS ignores almost all the hints in a TrueType font, while Microsoft's ClearType ignores many hints, and according to Microsoft, works best with 'lightly hinted' fonts."[1]

Also, OTF is required for advanced typography features. Given that TrueType hinting is mostly ignored, OTF is generally a better choice.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueType#Macintosh_and_Microso...

erk__• 8 years ago

Or if you use arch linux you can get it here: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ttf-ibm-plex-git/

(I have to change as now it downloads the whole repo as it used to be in a giant repo with no release.)

boznz• 8 years ago

Wow, What a shit web site, I'd hate to see what a payroll system looks like :-)

thrillgore• 8 years ago

Or an iOS app to randomly select between two columns...

2fifty3• 8 years ago

Great looking font, I think my scroll wheel might be exhausted from that webpage though.

seibelj• 8 years ago

From my experience dealing with IBM, I can only imagine this was the result of 5 different consulting teams, assisted by 3 different outsourced development groups, which was delayed numerous times, then Watson was added, and then a re-org caused by layoffs, which finally resulted in a website that couldn't scroll and caused the CPU of my high-end laptop to scream...

luma• 8 years ago

It feels like there should be a 9-digit contract with a hapless government entity that stands no chance of actually getting the font they thought they were paying for.

Spooky23• 8 years ago

...and as a result a $6B payroll project will be cancelled because the integrator was depending on IBM Plex being a drop-in replacement for Comic Sans Bold.

krona• 8 years ago

You missed the most important part; it was initiated by a team of lawyers who were tipped off by another team who noticed the Watson design team were using a typeface on public websites which they didn't have the copyright to, and certainly didn't have the license to redistribute.

Almost 2 years later, Plex was born.

(This is a true story, by the way.)

epc• 8 years ago

I'd hope you were kidding, because I went through this very thing, at IBM, in the 1990s and got a corporate legal standard put in place.

Or so I thought, because I'm fairly certain everything we did in the 1990s has been thoroughly erased by ridiculous document retention policies.

Maxious• 8 years ago

"we are in the process of acquiring the rights and licensing for Helvetica Neue for IBM" [2015]

https://github.com/IBM-Watson/design-guide/issues/120

dawnerd• 8 years ago

Plex was born.

And then they get sued by Plex, Inc and starts over.

mark-r3• 8 years ago

Thanks for that, I was wondering why they went to all the trouble of designing a new typeface.

The thing I haven't figured out yet is why they made it open source rather than keeping it exclusively for their own use.

i_feel_great• 8 years ago

You missed the part where IBM outsourced the work out to a team in China, which outsourced part of it to a team in the Phillipines, which outsourced part of it to a team in India, which copy-pasted some open-sourced typeface made by some guy in the US.

gshakir• 8 years ago

And "optimized" to run on their cloud bluemix or softlayer

forgotmypw• 8 years ago

Luckily, it's just blank without JS, so I was able to move on quickly.

Digital-Citizen• 8 years ago

I concur.

I'm impressed with the number of people who think that JS on most people's webpages is a good idea. Or that any JS was necessary to announce this font. It wasn't and wasn't carried off well here (nothing for the no-JS crowd).

A far easier page to write up and one that would have looked better could have been done with nothing but HTML, CSS (demonstrating the font in real-world usage even), and perhaps some PNGs to show bitmaps of the font (useful for those who, wisely, don't load every font the page says to load).

https://github.com/IBM/plex has the free font.

oneplusone• 8 years ago

It sure looks like it was designed by committee. It is one of the ugliest typefaces I have ever seen and, having studied typography, I have seen some really shitty ones. What were they thinking with the f and r? This is Times New Roman all over again.

Bud• 8 years ago

Huh? Times New Roman is at least acceptable; it's legible and was designed by a real type designer. Plex is a complete joke.

int_19h• 8 years ago

The square t also makes my eyes bleed.

htor• 8 years ago

introducing scroll-o-death page

outside2344• 8 years ago

I'm glad they are wasting their time on this versus being relevant.

SpikeDad• 8 years ago

Netflix just created a custom font for themselves. If it's good enough for Netflix it's good enough for IBM. 8-)

benbenolson2• 8 years ago

Being relevant? Their architectures and systems are quickly rising in popularity, their compiler is making great strides, and overall they're actively breaking into the HPC market, which they haven't been dominating in a very long time. I'd say they're extremely relevant, just perhaps not to your specific skillset.

TheOtherHobbes• 8 years ago

Based on this site, they're actively breaking out of the web design market.

As for the rest:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/269396/global-market-sha...

It's too early to tell if that last quarter is an amazing turn-around trend, or an anomaly.

jefe_• 8 years ago

User Experience Goal: Amphetamine-Fueled Delusions of Grandeur

nsxwolf• 8 years ago

Apple, Samsung, Netflix, now IBM... why does everyone need their own typeface? Is it to save on licensing fees? As a user, I don't really find these fonts very distinctive, so I don't associate them with their brands.

kashprime• 8 years ago

I guess they don't want to get the Papyrus treatment by Ryan Gosling: https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/1/16392890/avatar-papyrus-f...

robotsquidward• 8 years ago

I think San Francisco and Roboto are distinctively Apple and Google respectively. I also think they matter more because they're system fonts on some of the biggest platforms (and maybe just because I happen to like them).

If I ever see this font again, I probably won't even know I'm looking at it.

oddevan2• 8 years ago

In the case of Netflix, it is specifically to save on licensing fees. Gotham is expensive, yo.

Apple's always had their own typeface, though I don't remember them using one as heavily as San Francisco. But it feels very in-character for them.

Samsung did it, I suspect, because Apple did.

erikig• 8 years ago

Damn you Tobias Frere-Jones, rolling around in your font wealth!

grzm3• 8 years ago

Apple's always been focussed on design, in both marketing and UI. In marketing, for a long time everything was Apple Garamond, then Myriad. In the UI, Chicago and Geneva were heavy hitters. Now we have San Francisco. A key difference with this last one is that it's used in both the UI and in marketing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography_of_Apple_Inc.

zokier3• 8 years ago

Especially with company with as many tentacles as IBM, having own typeface also helps ensure consistent design language across the company, both in terms of licensing (they can use it in any media/geography/field they need) and applicability (they can have all the variants etc needed).

Of course cost is also a major aspect. Random article claims that "Until recently, it [IBM] was spending over a million dollars each year to license Neue Helvetica for the company". With that sort of money you can afford to make your own fonts too.

While I'd agree that e.g. the Netflix font was somewhat non-remarkable/forgettable, I think they did manage to capture surprising amount of IBMness into Plex. I noticed it on their docs pages before they made big fuss about it, and really remarked to myself on how neat the font was.

mark-r3• 8 years ago

I agree, they managed to capture some IBMness there. But if they were doing it to enhance their branding, why did they make it open source?

dragonwriter• 8 years ago

Licensing fees savings + brand identity + everyone else is doing it, it seems to me.

khrbrt• 8 years ago

Don't forget Red Hat! http://overpassfont.org/

What are some other corporate fonts?

rado• 8 years ago

Love the font.

Numberwang• 8 years ago

Hmm, this is old right? I remember seeing this months ago.

zokier3• 8 years ago

The news of Plex started coming out late last year, but I think it started appearing on e.g. IBM documentation even earlier than that.

JustSomeNobody• 8 years ago

I really thought this was going to be video streaming related. Then I opened the site and thought, "Ok, that makes much more sense."

dexterdog2• 8 years ago

I switched my editor default from Liberation Mono to this and it is almost the identical font. The only thing I don't like is the mono is not sans-serif so I'll stick with Liberation.

NegativeLatency• 8 years ago

Looks a lot like DejaVu Sans Mono to me.

Also it is not easy to tell l (lowercase L) and 1 (the number 1) apart in their monospaced font.

tzakrajs• 8 years ago

Stop using the word Plex. Stop.

jf• 8 years ago

It is a very "IBM" typeface indeed. It reminds me of the typeface that is inspired by the IBM 1403 printer: https://1403.slantedhall.com/

TrisMcC• 8 years ago

I've been using Plex Mono for my Emacs font on MacOS for about a week and it's very nice. It has replaced Hack for the time being.

The font has just the right amount of whimsy/flair for me, and the style of the italics is pretty neat.

MartinCron• 8 years ago

Something I never thought I would write, but here it is:

"Those curly braces are gorgeous"

tzahola• 8 years ago

Their website works horribly in Safari.

marcelluspye• 8 years ago

This website is so ugly and hard-to-use I honestly thought it was a parody (I still kind of do). Font looks okay, though.

sunseb• 8 years ago

The website is a pain, the font is very nice though.

nik736• 8 years ago

On my 4k screen this landing page is a complete disaster.

broodbucket• 8 years ago

It's a disaster on everyone's screen.

bitwize• 8 years ago

Nice.

Is it available as a Selectric typeball?

throwaway47193• 8 years ago

Is the website available on any known platform, including any selectric-based platforms?

kps• 8 years ago

The Selectric has nice scroll wheels.

chaoticmass• 8 years ago

They should make them as a promotional item.

xab9• 8 years ago

In 2018 frontend development reached the point where multiple pages with a working scrollbar seems to be beyond our reach.

In the meantime the "glorious" IBM releases a free font, and this is newsworthy.

I think the Internet, while started out as something really promising, it's done for. Let it die, before it's too late, please. Someone, pull the plug, let's start over. Maybe the next one will be better, who knows.

zachrose• 8 years ago

This is excellent work, and all of the source files and fonts permissively licensed and available on GitHub.

https://github.com/IBM/plex

dgreensp• 8 years ago

Oh wow, I was not expecting that!

misterbowfinger• 8 years ago

I love the general design. But as others noted, the scrolling behavior is WAY terrible.

Do "normal people" enjoy this type of scrolling behavior?

ghaff2• 8 years ago

Too bad the website is so poorly designed. It's actually a nice read through the design decisions. My first glance at the IBM serif made me think it was more of a slab serif like Stymie Bold but the discussion of its use in smaller sizes foes a nice job of explaining the differences.

throwaway47193• 8 years ago

How were you able to read anything?

ghaff2• 8 years ago

There's a menu that you can click on at the top if you move your mouse/trackpad in the right way and that brings up additional pages. Whoever designed--and I use that word in the loosest possible sense--the pages needs some remedial web design school, as does anyone who approved it.

musage• 8 years ago

    IBM has always served as a medium between mankind and machine.
    Between the natural and the engineered.
    The emotional and rational.
    The classic and the cutting-edge.
    Our most important job is to help humanity and technology move forward together.
    IBM Plex™ brings these relationships to life through letterforms.

I was able to read this stuff by first pounding my knee with my fist, then biting so hard on my left hand I nearly lost some fingertips. But I made it through it. The challenging scrolling actually provided some additional and welcome distraction from the sheer horror of the words.

benbenolson2• 8 years ago

I'm actually using this font globally on my system (the sans-serif, monospace, and serif version), in Firefox, i3, terminal emulator, etc. They're great fonts, my favorite my far. They're just interesting enough to be a cool font, but not so interesting that things are difficult to read or look odd.

throwaway47193• 8 years ago

This is comically bad.

wnevets• 8 years ago

I hate to be that guy but that fucking site is a pain

exabrial• 8 years ago

Were the overseas IBM contractors paid in units of "full page scrolls"?

chao-4• 8 years ago

This is one of the most frustrating page navigation experiences I have had in long a while. I tend to scroll with pgup/pgdn or arrow keys (or more occasionally, space/shift+space) and when I got to the big "IBM" logo the page just kind of stopped. I thought that was all.

It wasn't until I came to this thread I realized there was more, and I should look again, but even then it took me forever to:

1. Realize I needed to put my hand on my mouse, hover the tiny, thin red line to get it to expand, and then use that to navigate.

2. Flip between pgup/pgdn and arrow keys. Sometimes one set worked, sometimes another did, and it would flip at random points in the experience.

Why on earth would you selectively enable and disable the browser's interaction with common navigation keys repeatedly in the span of a single page? I can understand blocking/swallowing one set if you intend to use it somewhere for something else (i.e. the text input sections), but flipping them on and off with no other use for those keys while they are blocked? It boggles the mind.

munk-a• 8 years ago

I think you just need to get hip to the Web6.0 design patterns. This site is just the beginning of the next style revolution... that we really need to get in front of and stop quickly.

BoorishBears• 8 years ago

Before clicking the link:

grumble grumble typical HN, top comment is whining about the webpage instead of focusing on the content. sigh

After clicking the link on my smartphone:

Sweet mother of Jesus, what have they done.

paulddraper2• 8 years ago

Not even ad blockers can save us.

zeth___• 8 years ago

Kill it with fire.

meggar• 8 years ago

I thought they turned my iPhone into a Zune for a second.

tomsmeding• 8 years ago

If you scroll with your mouse, you can actually scroll past that IBM logo. It's an animation. After the logo, you get a nice huge button to the next section.

I didn't even spot this at first, a friend did.

chao-4• 8 years ago

Oh wow, and it's even kind of a neat effect! Thanks for the tip.

Unfortunately it only works with the scroll wheel, or scroll events on a trackpad. It works finger-crampingly slow with my scroll wheel, about 15 full seconds of constant action, but I just found a laptop to try it on, and I think I finally got the effect they were going for with trackpad scroll effect. Much smoother and a neat effect. Spoiled a bit by my first, finger-cramping impression, but otherwise smooth enough that if I stumbled onto that experience first I might have thought nothing of it, or even been impressed.

Still see no reason for it not to responded to normal navigation keys.

kevin_thibedeau• 8 years ago

Not to worry. It sucks on mobile too. The whole thing feels like a throwback designery Flash landing page. Took way too long to scroll before seeing full typeset paragraphs of the font.

mlazos• 8 years ago

This reminded me exactly of that Dropbox design page at dropbox.design - it was the exact same frustrating experience. If this is a trend please make it stop.

chao-4• 8 years ago

For what it's worth, and setting aside opinions on the design itself, at least https://dropbox.design/ never steals focus or disables core navigation keys in frustrating, alternating ways.

jordaniusrex• 8 years ago

Same agency http://www.xxix.co/

neotek• 8 years ago

dropbox.design

This is fucking mental, seriously.

jccalhoun• 8 years ago

I honestly started wondering if this was some early April Fools joke web site or something.

minieggs• 8 years ago

Wow, shift+space is great. I wish I knew about this years ago.

hammerbrostime• 8 years ago

Very funny, I viewed the page on my iPhone and the experience was a joy. Perhaps they overfit the experience for mobile?

bmpafa• 8 years ago

Fun related story: I once stumbled on a minor(ish) UI bug in IBMs PaaS dashboard and reported it via their contact form or whatever, even included an animated gif screen cap.

_five months later_, I got a reply asking to explain further. I couldn't even remember what the bug was.

elviejo• 8 years ago

I got to the same spot... can't move past the IBM logo.

And that's it... there are many things in life more important than learning to navigate this one specific page.

_Chief• 8 years ago

On mobile the the UI is just as bizzare; random horizontal lines, the page jumps for no reason, touch/scroll randomly stops working. It's takes talent to make website UX so uncomfortable

Traubenfuchs• 8 years ago

How utterly horrifying.

It's also broken on my PC on Chrome, I need to scroll A LOT to advance the page...

danso• 8 years ago

I always chuckle at seeing the "The damn page hijacked my back button/spacebar/Tab/cursor keys!" comments because even though they are technically right, they usually exaggerate the inconvenience. But goddamn this has to be one of the most frustrating websites from a huge company/vendor I've ever used, despite the very cool offering.

It actually was pretty straightforward on iOS Chrome mobile. On Desktop though -- WTF, users are supposed to eventually figure out how to activate the hidden menubar at the top? My first thought after mousewheeling to the giant IBM logo was that Chrome had crashed, because motion/interactivity had seemingly stopped so suddenly. Not since the Flash days have I seen a bespoke interactive web experience with such prominent navigation/UX confusion.

That said, when I figured out how to navigate, I enjoyed reading the narrative text, and I definitely plan on trying the font out in my next project.

sfifs• 8 years ago

In my company, I've often used an IBM created expense reporting tool as an example of how NOT to design UI :-) Looks like the mindset permeates the company.

Thankfully we use a far superior tool now :-)

amelius• 8 years ago

If it's "distinctly IBM" then why is it interesting for the rest of us?

It also makes me wonder: is IBM trying to push subliminal advertisements for its brand through this typeface?

paulie_a• 8 years ago

Project manager for that site: "Hey need the most unusable website ever created, but with a modern feel. Bonuses of $1K for every anti pattern you can manage to incorporate"

delecti• 8 years ago

Even the term "anti-pattern" too graciously implies there's some sort of rhyme or reason (some "pattern") to the madness.

mhd• 8 years ago

I first heard about this from the iA Writer blog[1], where they used Plex Mono for their own Duospace font. I've been using the font intermittently since then (I'm still somewhat of a Monaco fanboy on OS X), and I like it quite a lot.

[1] https://ia.net/topics/in-search-of-the-perfect-writing-font/

ivan_ah• 8 years ago

Looks pretty nice overall, but the glyph for the digit 5 is weird, especially in bold. The notch on the left goes really deep...

antoineMoPa• 8 years ago

I love the font and the site, it worked well in chrome (android), except some glitch in the begining. Otherwise, the font is very interestingly and interactively presented.

Semiapies2• 8 years ago

The most offensively poorly-engineered page I've been to in years, all to promote Arial...Sorry, our totally original grotesque font inspired by Helvetica, don't steal!.

What is IBM even doing that's worthwhile?

rspeer• 8 years ago

The page is definitely poorly engineered, but the font looks nothing like Arial or Helvetica.

Semiapies2• 8 years ago

It's poorly engineered enough to keep you from getting to the part where they talk about Plex as a Helvetica alternative. :)

The Arial connection is that Arial has the same origin as a Helvetica alternative. It even shares similar differences to Helvetica, such as the construction of "C".

robotresearcher• 8 years ago

don't steal

https://github.com/IBM/plex

"This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1."

DanBC• 8 years ago

There's a lot of people saying they hate the website, and I just want you all to remember this is exactly how many people feel when you chose to use thin light grey font on a bright white background.

voicemynah• 8 years ago

I nearly expected the website would be a disaster even before clicking. I was not disappointed. Lot of old school companies try to use some effect on their website just for the sake of it.

brailsafe• 8 years ago

That IBM System/360 is beautiful. I never thought I'd say that about anything IBM.

fareesh• 8 years ago

Lots of jank on an old Nexus 6P. Granted it's not buttery smooth anymore, but that was pretty crazy.

Does it load jank free on anyone's mobile device? Curious to know if there are devices out there with no jank on this site.

Karunamon• 8 years ago

My 6S was having a really hard time here, and this phone isn’t exactly a slouch!

mey• 8 years ago

They have a type tester on the page. May I suggest plugging in the following characters. Wasn't a fan of how they are represented.

lwQ{}vxz

Edit: Correction, it's just Mono Italic Bold. Looks better in other formats.

parliament32• 8 years ago

Those 5s make me uncomfortable.

subbz• 8 years ago

Very IBMish. Brutalist designers will love it. I kinda like it.

smilekzs• 8 years ago

"1 vs l" distinction isn't very clear in the mono version --- wouldn't that be a deal-breaker for a code font?

bluenose69• 8 years ago

I've tried Plex but keep going back to Monaco. Somehow, my eyes grow weary faster with Plex. This may just be a function of my age, so your mileage may vary, but here's a listing of things that I think make Plex tiresome for coding:

1. The lower-case ell ("l") and number one ("1") look so similar that I need almost to squint to see the difference, if I'm tired.

2. Plex seems to distinguish between letters by small "inside" features, as opposed to "edge" features. What I mean can be seen by contrasting "a" and "g" in Plex and Monaco.

I think it's this second thing that tires my eyes. While I admit that the letters are clearer in Plex than in Monaco (e.g. there's no mistaking "a" for "o" in Plex), I find that tired eyes can get enough information from the outside shape to distinguish the features, and there is a higher comfort level in viewing the characters, without the extra high-wavenumber twists and turns of the "pen".

Again, I think a lot of this may just be that I have old and never-especially-great eyes. But I thought I'd mention these things, in case younger folks find their eyes growing tired and are wondering why.

hnarn• 8 years ago

Have you tried Iosevka? It's been my favorite code font for a while, mainly because it's so configurable (your #1 can be changed to your preference, and has a sane default), it's free and it's slightly narrowed which makes more code fit in the same space without sacrificing legibility.

FullyFunctional• 8 years ago

That web slide show was overdone IMO, but I'm a sucker for a code coding font and gave it a spin. Fired up three identical terminals with the same text, colors, and sizes, with respectively SF Mono, Source Code Pro, and now IBM Plex Mono [1].

My conclusion:

OMG, what has the world come to. It's 2018 and I have more great fonts at my disposal than I know to choose from. I could honestly live with any of them, but I'll stay Plex for a bit, if just for the beautiful 7.

[1] I do have other fine choices, like Inconsolata, Droid Mono, etc, but not enough time to try everything.

jldugger• 8 years ago

I'm confused -- why does 't' have a single rounded corner at the cross stroke? 'f' doesn't have this feature and it doesn't seem very consistent with the rest of the font.

grzm3• 8 years ago

Fundamentally it comes down to style. Two practical reasons are:

- to more easily distinguish 't' from similar characters, such as 'f'. Particularly with monospace fonts, rigid adherence to rules can result in character confusion.

- to balance the foot of the 't' which extends to the right.

noonespecial• 8 years ago

The f, l, and r hurt my eyes in a way I didn't know I could be hurt until now! There's something diabolical about that right angle and unnatural narrowing.

O_H_E• 8 years ago

the "t" gets one angle with a rounded curve, and one is 90 degree sharp

jrs952• 8 years ago

At this point I'd wish HN would take a month off of new typefaces similar to the break from politics ;)

Really though, this is sort of a silly trend. Why does every tech company need to create their own typeface? Do they actually think anyone is going to care, or even notice?

jrs952• 8 years ago

For what it's worth, the scrolling experience is way better on mobile. But I don't know how anyone could ever approve the desktop experience, it could easily be used as an example of what not to do with scrolling. It's the worst thing I have seen like this, personally.

paulddraper2• 8 years ago

I was disappointed "IBM" didn't look better...the "I" comes off as too narrow standing next to the other two.

taeric• 8 years ago

I just recently actually read my copy of Computer Modern. Between that and the METAFONT books, it is amusing how little of this is new. And those books didn't claim to be groundbreaking.

Regardless, neat article. It is interesting to get into the weeds of typography. For anyone this introduced to the topic, dive in, it is a wonderful subject!

cup-of-tea• 8 years ago

Ah, just what a I needed, a typeface that is "global".

Corrado• 8 years ago

Looking at the character grid near the bottom of the page[0] you can see that they have created not one, not two, but three different ways to represent zero; empty middle, dot middle, slash middle. Is there any reason for this at all? How do you even select a particular glyph? Are they on a different codepage or something?

[0] https://www.ibm.com/plex/specs/

a_e_k• 8 years ago

"OpenType features" can let you define variations within a font. There's a standard one for slashed vs. non-slashed zeroes (not sure about dotted):

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/fe...

Ice_cream_suit• 8 years ago

I need to claw my eyes out, after visiting that web page.

moreentropy• 8 years ago

At first I liked it but then I saw the strange ß (german Eszett, ss can be used instead).

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F I understand that that's the Antiqua form while nowadays the Sulzbacher form is used. But I don't know anything serious about typography.

OliverJones• 8 years ago

A new typeface family of this scope doesn't come along very often. Sure, plenty of new fonts come out, but they contain mostly one to four styles (Roman/Oblique Normal/Bold) and have a special purpose. Two great examples are Matthew Carter's Bell Centennial (for phone book printing) and his Carter Sans (which I use for short chunks of copy).

Kris Holmes's and Chuck Bigelow's Lucida is one of the most recent comprehensive new type families, and that's from a generation ago. Other computer companies (Digital for example) helped support their effort.

So this is a big deal. It's a huge effort, and they made it open source and free. That's great. Thanks IBM, for supporting type designers. No doubt some of them are early in their careers. IBM's support has definitely given them a leg up. IBM will help us see another generation of new type.

It has decent ligatures ("fi" for example, look at the Slack desktop app's type to see what a ligature looks like). It only has one style of digits (figures, typeheads call them) rather than the choice of proportional and lining. But this is the 21st century and proportional figures are known as "old style".

It's no surprise the team wanted to make an artists' statement about their purposes and choices, and personally I found it (their web site) worth reading. It was a big nuisance to navigate, though.

I hope IBM can emerge from the cloud wars intact. It's gonna take focus. Unfortunately, a new typeface doesn't look like focus.

chrstphrknwtn• 8 years ago

Typefaces of this quality and scope come along all the time. I don't really understand how it's a big deal. Take Source {Sans, Serif, Code) Pro, by Paul D. Hunt for Adobe (also open source); it's arguably a better typeface for user interfaces, and is a much better interpretation of Franklin Gothic and related Morris Fuller Benton gothics (as Plex claims in some areas.)

Also Apple's San Francisco, admittedly missing a serif variant, is a similarly broadly scoped project... of much higher quality.

Both of the above typefaces have fonts with character sets / glyph counts exceeding Plex: Plex Sans Regular - 663, Source Sans Pro Regular - 832, SF Pro Text Regular - 2439.

IBM Plex as an open source font is cool, however I think is of limited use to the broader design community... the formal qualities carried over from Paul Rand's IBM logo make it too idiosyncratic to use outside IBM products.

For IBM, I think it's awesome, especially considering it's replacing Helvetica.

Also, your terminology for figure styles is inaccurate. Proportional means of variable horizontal width (not monospaced), where the alternative is tabular figures (monospaced for tables). Old style figures can be either of the above, however their form is more like lowercase characters (an 'old style') that tend to work better in continuous text.

memco• 8 years ago

I Really like the style. I think the Google Font[0] page makes it much easier to see it in action. I hope someone makes a variant with coding ligatures. It appears that it does not support the polytonic Greek characters on OSX, though it shows Greek characters are in the set--not sure if that's a Mac thing or the font.

[0] https://fonts.google.com/featured/Plex

IBM Plex – A new typeface

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