New Webflow forum Fonts - hard to read

[daniel_cleayweb (Daniel Mcleay)]

• Old Font
• New Font

This new forum font is harder to read, Anyone else feel the same?

Lets Vote old or new?

[vincent (Vincent Bidaux)]

Haha, I’m like you. I find the new font quite strange and with a kerning w a y t o o l a r g e

But it seems I’m the only one to feel this way

So be it.

[thesergie (Sergie Magdalin)]

@vincent @daniel_cleayweb what OS are you guys running? And what specifically are you referring to - the headings or the paragraph text in the comments?

[Mark_Bowen]

Not seeing any problems here on either iPhone (7+)or iPad (Air 2) or Mac (Mac Pro 5,1) on Safari, Chrome or Firefox.

[jorn (Jörn)]

I like the new font on iOS. On my computer I don’t know, maybe leaning to a little bit to the old one.

[vincent (Vincent Bidaux)]

Hi @thesergie

Really that’s not an essential deal. I think I’m getting used to it. But it’s an interesting design topic, absolutely

Referring to the paragraph text tracking.

I’m running Chrome on macOS. I have never used a font with such a large tracking (letter-spacing. I’ve said kerning before but it’s a confusion).

Here is a screenshot with the current properties:

http://vincent.polenordstudio.fr/snap/zwqxi.jpg

Here is how it was before with a standard `“Helvetica”, “Arial”, sans-serif``

http://vincent.polenordstudio.fr/snap/ehqxz.jpg

Curious why the change happened. Is it related to a new or newly activated option within the Discourse app?

Can anyone on Chrome/Windows post a screenshot of @thesergie’s comment for comparison?

The font-family declaration now reads -apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,"Helvetica","Arial",sans-serif,Georgia,serifbut I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen `-apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont" in action before, Apple having deployed SanFrancisco steadily for years now (last week on their website too).

I thought that invoking system fonts on Mac would bring up SF Pro text for any text under 20px and SF Pro Display for any text at 20px or above. But it doesn’t seem to be the case. Heres’ your message in SF Pro Text

http://vincent.polenordstudio.fr/snap/5mi5k.jpg

Here is a comparison of the three:

Now this is interesting. After reading about it, the apple system / blink declaration is now very much adopted. Even buy some that are extremely cautious of their font—like guys at Medium. Those guys can write a 10 pages paper on how to handle underline (which is awesome). But if I understand correctly, this font declaration should have the same effect on Safari and Chrome. Bringing SF Pro text to Safari and BlinkMac on Chrome, which is supposed to be equivalent. But it’s not.

Here’s your message with apple system / blink in Safari:

http://vincent.polenordstudio.fr/snap/fyjzu.jpg

Comparison between Safari and Chrome:

There is an obvious tracking difference.

How does it go on Medium? They use the system font on alternative texts and user badges. Here’s John’s.

On Chrome:

http://vincent.polenordstudio.fr/snap/3t5s8.jpg

On Safari:

http://vincent.polenordstudio.fr/snap/wjj4x.jpg

Quite the same tracking difference.

So I don’t really know how with spending so much time on fonts ends up with a significant tracking difference between Chrome and Safari.

Again, that’s a cool font-forensic exercise but it’s not a crucial topic nor a big issue

• Article from Medium’s Marcin Wichary: Using UI System Fonts In Web Design: A Quick Practical Guide — Smashing Magazine
• John’s article on Medium: Your style guide’s missing something — and it’s big | by John Moore Williams | Medium

[daniel_cleayweb (Daniel Mcleay)]

Sergie for me its the headlines on the main forum page. Im running MacOS Sierra V 10.12.2 on Chrome Version 55.0.2883.95

[thesergie (Sergie Magdalin)]

Oh that’s interesting. I wouldn’t have expected Safari to render macOS native font differently from how Chrome renders it. The text rendering is consistent for me across both browsers. I’m on version 10.12.2

[vincent (Vincent Bidaux)]

@thesergie

I wouldn’t have expected Safari to render macOS native font differently from how Chrome renders it.

Me neither.

10.12.2 too, I made sure everything was up to date before going in depth.

So if it’s consistent on your side, how does it look? Like my Safari or like my Chrome?

Edit just tested on Canary and in a private session to eliminate cache and extensions issues, but I get the same tracking.

[thesergie (Sergie Magdalin)]

It’s so subtle. I think your computer is broken.

[vincent (Vincent Bidaux)]

Haha yes it’s very subtle on your computer

If my computer is broken then ALL my computers are broken

I’m not going to take more of your time, you have so many private message to read…