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Works just fine
Posted by Nao Nozawa 8/3/2006 12:01:25 AM

I'm a Mac user and I installed these fonts to test if they would work on my machine. Contrary to what you say in your article, that these fonts usually won't work on a Mac, I've had no problems so far using or viewing the fonts.

These will do just fine
Posted by Zoltan Zoltan 1/14/2006 6:48:31 AM

I have to laugh when I see comments about these fonts failing because "real" designers use Macs, and no-one likes proprietary fonts etc. This is nonsense. There is a growing trend with designers, especially web designers, in the use of PCs for design. I use both a Mac and a PC, and prefer the PC. Given the cost difference there is a growing trend (in the UK at least) for switching to PCs.

Also the idea that "real" web designers design for Firefox/Safari, or some other standards based concept, before anything is not true. There is a growing awareness of standards, which is of course a good thing. But "real" designers like me are real because I make living from it. Try explaining standards compliance to a financial advisor or dentist, or whomever you are designing for. The people who pay the money generally don't care.

MS plays a huge part in the development of online technology, generally in an indirect way. I doubt 6 new fonts will set the world on fire, but I have no doubt they'll get used. The stats from any website I have designed almost always show Firefox at about 5-10%, and Mac users under 1%. MS are the dominant force, there is no getting away from it.

As for the comments about "real" designers and the like, it is exactly that kind of elitist crap that often gets in the way of real change. Things only work if they have widespread support and uptake, not because they're the best. MS know their stuff doesn't need to be good it just has to be widely available.

As for the 6 fonts in question - I think they're great. I also don't understand why people are banging on about making them free. They are free, you just have to buy Vista and they're all there :)

I love Consolas!
Posted by Louis St-Amour 1/6/2006 2:33:15 AM

Hello! First time on this site, and I'm definitely coming back.

I arrived from a page on "programming fonts" that I found using Google and it was interesting to see all the background on these fonts since in pretend I'm a designer in my spare time :p

Consolas is an amazing font and I can't imagine living without it.

To refute some of the article and many of the comments, these fonts (including Consolas) are included for free with Microsoft Office 12 Beta 1 for Windows, whether its installed on XP or Vista. (That's how I got them)

Office 12, by the way, is an essential upgrade for any designer who cares about simplicity. And these new fonts are standard in the new styles and themes included with Office.

Many other articles published by Microsoft on these fonts refrence their inclusion, for free, with Microsoft Windows Vista and "other Microsoft products". So I expect that nearly any product Microsoft sells that uses these fonts (including Office for Mac OS X) will bundle these fonts. They might even be bundled with free or low-cost products like Microsoft Expressions.

Some nice fonts, too bad they aren't widely available
Posted by Jeff C 8/9/2005 11:40:24 AM

It's good to see MS doing something to improve upon the cartoonishly bad GUI in XP. Vista's combination of OSX "inspired" (haha) graphical interface along with these fonts goes a long way in making their OS look like it's no longer aimed at preschoolers.

To the poster before me who mentioned that designing for IE last is "elitist": Unfortunately, it's not. IE is the most rule-breaking browser available (even IE7). So most forward-thinking web people code for other browsers that follow the rules (Firefox, Safari, Opera), then make workarounds for IE's odd behavior.

The compatibility factor upsets people who have to develop for MS products (the Vista-only fonts being the latest example). Sorry if this is a rant, but it's more of the same from MS: A good thing with a frustrating twist.

Some ramblings on the 6 C's
Posted by Chas Blackford 5/26/2005 1:14:25 PM

Always a bit difficult to use design and Microsoft in the same sentence but these are a vast improvement over the likes of Trebuchet and Comic Sans. However when it comes to Microsoft, there's always a caveat: they're proprietary - nothing ever emanates from Redmond that might be even considered in an open source context.

I do find Alan Demarco's take that "Most (real and good) designers design for Netscape, Firefox and Safari and then port to IE..." somewhat disingenuous and a bit elitist, as 95+% plus viewers are using IE, it would make more sense to design to it, unless your designs are just met for other designers (e.g. 9px fixed fonts in your CSS). Don't get me started...

However, the consistently irreverent side of my multi-modal personality requires that I ask: so who named these fonts? The same guy who�s naming Toyotas? Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, Corbel�hmmm, sounds kind of like Camry, Corrolla, Cressida, Celica, Corona, Crown, Carina...

Column Title Misleading
Posted by Stephen Coles 5/10/2005 4:32:48 PM

Here's what John Hudson, designer of Constantia has to say about the use of these fonts as Web fonts:

"These fonts are very unlikely to ever be freely licensed in the way Georgia and Verdana were. Georgia and Verdana were distributed in the way they were in order to ensure widespread availability for spec'ing in websites. The new MS fonts are specifically value-added components of Longhorn, intended to improve the onscreen reading experience of Longhorn users."

http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/30/68190.html?1111771426#post97437

Heavy-hitters
Posted by Ben Hagon 4/28/2005 12:48:21 PM

Great to see Microsoft using some heavy hitters in the typographic design scene to design for PCs. Shame they are not addressing the whole compatability issue (again).

De groot and Tankard are two favourites, and of course they have not failed with this task.

So much of an improvement over the existing choices. When I think of web/pc fonts I think bad. Maybe this will change from now on.

why not ?
Posted by gabriel jorby 3/26/2005 6:52:08 PM

We can defend the usage of such types, and I do believe they could be used more often by webdesigners, especially if these types will be implemented on windows computers for free.

Arial, Verdana and Georgia types were first massively introduced by Microsoft, and now many web designers are using it in their css, because of their popularity in systems. Later on, browsers or softwares, even on mac, have installed those types on your system.

There is one feedback about the drawback of the similar naming. But is it also a good point, because many users choose their types by choosing them in a list, in alphabetical order. By having all the types starting with a "C" letter, it would be also easier to locate them.

You wont see much of these.
Posted by [User profile deleted] 3/19/2005 9:05:47 AM

I'm a designer for major media websites and I can tell you that you wont be seeing many of these fonts for a few reasons. 1. Most (real and good) designers use Macs and won't even bother to design Windows-only pages. 2. Most (real and good) designers design for Netscape, Firefox and Safari and then port to IE, not the reverse, since IEs standards support sucks. 3. A lot of (real and good) designers simply hate M$ and wont use these fonts to spite them. 4. NO ONE will pay M$ money to use a few new fonts that really dont look all that much different than what is already out there. This is all just another lame example of M$ trying to own a market with proprietary software. This will die as fast as thier proposed proprietary spam technology. Next...

New MS fonts in Typo magazine
Posted by Filip Blazek 3/19/2005 5:48:15 AM

Typo magazine published an overview of new MS system fonts in the ussue 11, November 2004. Eight pages written by Pavel Zelenka are dedicated to ClearType technology and mainly to new MS fonts. There are also hi quality previews of those typefaces. You can download PDF of the magazine for free at www.magtypo.cz.

A semi-bold suggestion
Posted by Graeme Williams 3/18/2005 5:20:30 PM

If I had one request for Mr Gates, it would be for some of the typefaces to be made available in semi-bold, which I sometimes find useful in Powerpoint presentations.

Naming
Posted by lee marrett 3/17/2005 3:04:35 PM

Great! These fonts look really nice. I wonder however why Microsoft decided to name them all so similarly -- remembering which is which now will be a case of trial and error...

Also seeing as these fonts are opentype surely means they will be usable on macs and pcs alike?

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