Your submission was sent successfully! Close

You have successfully unsubscribed! Close

Thank you for signing up for our newsletter!
In these regular emails you will find the latest updates about Ubuntu and upcoming events where you can meet our team.Close

A true italic

Canonical

on 20 August 2010

Tags: Dalton Maag , Design , font , type , typography , Ubuntu Desktop

This article is more than 13 years old.

In this latest post from Dalton Maag Lukas Paltram updates us on the development thinking that went into the italics in the new Ubuntu font family.

The design of the regular weight of the Ubuntu font, in all three script systems, was a big step forward. All design principles were defined and fixed. We could now proceed to it’s close companion, Ubuntu italic.

The first trials for the Italic were concerned primarily with the question whether this should be simply a slanted and refined version of the regular style, typical for grotesque and geometric font styles, or should it be a classic, true Italic as we know it from serif and humanist sans serif fonts. We felt that only a true italic could satisfy the design of the Ubuntu font.

In typography, the purpose of the italic is to emphasise certain words or sentences. Therefore, a textural difference to the regular is important. The italic angle is of course the most obvious difference but in addition a slight reduction of width further helps to differentiate the italic.
Italic fonts have their roots in cursive handwriting and accordingly some characters have different shapes to the upright version. This is most obvious in the characters a, e, f or g, for example. As Latin script readers we are used to seeing these alternative glyph shapes and they are perfectly legible. Yet Ubuntu is a multilingual typeface, and we also had to consider other scripts and the changes that a switch to the cursive structure would bring to them. So, how does that affect Greek and Cyrillic letters, or other characters that we are not so familiar with?
The principle of the regular design is simplicity and clarity. This principle needed to be carried across to the italic design,  so we introduced just enough true italic elements to give it its own warm and human character without compromising on simplicity and clarity.

Lukas Paltram

Talk to us today

Interested in running Ubuntu in your organisation?

Newsletter signup

Get the latest Ubuntu news and updates in your inbox.

By submitting this form, I confirm that I have read and agree to Canonical's Privacy Policy.

Related posts

Vanilla 4.0 release

Last week we released a new major version of the Vanilla framework. Vanilla 4.0 introduces the elements of the new style used for a current rebranding of...

Let’s talk open design

Why aren’t there more design contributions in open source? Help us find out!

Introducing Netplan v1.0 – stable, declarative network management

After more than 7 years of development, Netplan v1.0 delivers improved stability and maintainability alongside a host of other new features.