User Interface (UI) Fonts
One of Monotype's specialties is enhancing the readability of fonts on the screens used in today's digital world. Ascender can help design or modify User Interface (UI) fonts for optimal legibility.
Monotype has an extensive range of fonts for developers to choose from, including some of the most popular and sought-after UI fonts that from our original collection and have licensed from Microsoft, IBM, Bigelow & Holmes and other leading type foundries. Here are some examples:
Monotype is noted for its talented type designers, and can create custom UI fonts or modify an existing design to meet the branding, screen resolution, language or other requirements of a developer.
User Interface Type Design Issues
Not all type designs make for good UI fonts, as some type designs will result in closed shapes that impair legibility.
UI fonts should have open counters & bowls, shortened terminals and a larger x-height. Consistent color and contrast helps eliminate typographic ambiguity.
Monotype's team of type designers and typographic engineers are renowend for their expertise in enhancing the readability of User Interface fonts targeted for the screens used in today's digital world.
Non-Roman UI font issues
Monotype has created UI fonts with extensive language support for complex scripts. We understand the importance of designing the non-Roman scripts to work with the Latin. Monotype can create Unicode-compliant fonts to support any language requirement.
Non-Roman scripts require careful planning. For example Thai (middle) requires 15 to 16 vertical pixels to render vowels and tone marks above and below the base consonants. When mixing scripts, it is acceptable (and often necessary) to raise the baseline for Arabic to accommodate the descending characters.
TrueType Hinting
The team at Monotype helped to produce TrueType® and ClearType® versions of Arial®, Times New Roman®, Georgia ®, Verdana®, Tahoma®, Calibri®, Cambria®, Meiryo® and many of the other User Interface fonts that are considered to be the premier UI fonts for on-screen legibility.
One of the keys to making TrueType fonts look good at small sizes is by programming "hints" that control the individual pixel display. Monotype's font experts are well-known for their in-depth knowledge of this subject. Read more about hinting for on-screen legibility.
Other Font Formats
Monotype can provide highly legible User Interface fonts in a variety of bitmap and outline formats. For Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) scripts in User Interfaces, Monotype offers DigiType™ Compact Asian version 2.0 - a new technology that reduces the memory footprint for CJK fonts displayed on consumer electronics and mobile devices
Please contact us to learn more about our User Interface font solutions.
