Possible New Fonts

Edited 2022/02/02

We've been okayed to potentially add a handful of new fonts to the site. There's a few things to consider, like the site's performance for one, that will have to be taken into account once we start testing, so like Keleth says, this might have to be something that waits for v2.

However, to find that out, we need to test, and to test, we need fonts, so the purpose of this thread is to decide which fonts those should be. To start, let's take a look at the eight fonts we have now.

Neutral Fonts

OpenSans_Regular font
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
0123456789!?+

OstrichSans font
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
0123456789!?+

Cursive Font
This is some sample content in the Cursive Font. On a mac this will actually be cursive.
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
0123456789!?+

SF-ish Fonts

AgencyFB font
This is some sample content in the AgencyFB font.
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
0123456789!?+

Neuropol font
This is some sample content in the Neuropol font.
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
0123456789!?+

Fantasy Fonts

Kelt font
This is some sample content in the Kelt font.
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
0123456789!?+

Dumbledor font
This is some sample content in the Dumbledor font.
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
0123456789!?+

Aniron font
This is some sample content in the Aniron font.
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
0123456789!?+

As you can probably see, we're missing several types of fonts. To that end, we're looking for more fonts in several categories:
-- Grunge/Apocalyptic
-- Old Book
-- 80's/Retro
-- Old Typewriter
-- Handwriting/Script
-- Fantasy
-- Sci-Fi

We've made the determination to stay with Google fonts, so that there are no hidden licensing issues. For some of these, Google has only one or a few, but for others, there's a lot to choose from. The goal is - for those categories that have many - to get a short list. These new fonts should meet four criteria:
-- 1) Legibility (the ease with which one letter can be told from the other)
-- 2) Readability (the ease with which the eye can absorb the message and move along the line)
-- 3) Resizes well.
-- 4) Has a unique character. (This is completely subjective.)

We're going to need to do this in two parts.
-- For some categories, the definition varies, so we'll need input as to what fonts to even consider. In a category listed as Taking Suggestions, just look through google fonts and see what you can find that fits. Multiple suggestions are fine.
-- For others, there's simply so many to choose from that even coming to a consensus on one font would be highly unlikely. For these, there's going to be a list to vote on. We'll also have a vote on the first type of category too - once we have enough to do so.
-- Some categories may only have one, so those will just be listed.

---

So what fonts do we have so far?
-- Grunge/Apocalyptic: Taking Suggestions
-- Old Book: Goudy Bookletter 1911 or IM Fell English (didn't get many suggestions for this category)
-- 80's/Retro: Press Start 2P or Stalinist One
-- Old Typewriter: Special Elite
-- Handwriting/Script: Quintessential or Jim Nightshade
-- Fantasy: Aladin or Eagle Lake
-- Sci-Fi: Gugi or Iceland
-- Stencil/Sketch: Black Ops One or Cabin Sketch

Vote One - Sci-Fi
(font names link to glyph page)

Audiowide
Gugi
Megrim
Baumans
Iceland
Nova Square
Nova Flat
Zen Dots
Geostar Fill



Poll is open until 2022.02.05 - or until leads show up

Can we also get an option to vote against certain fonts?

Megrim, for instance looks pretty unreadable in the longterm, and Geostar Fill will probably becomes painful as well.

I was going to try to do that, but the in-site polls aren't that complex. However, if the majority doesn't like them, they won't get votes, so I think we've safe.

My concern is that enough might like them --thinking they look fun-- not realising they are problem for others.

Another 'opposite vote' (sometimes called a veto) might be in order. It might be confusing though, this is a lot of work.

It might also help to know what the intent is for these fonts. When people would be using them.

'Sci-Fi' and 'apocalyptic' imply their use in types of games, but that would be horrendous. Even in such games most text should use the default font, for ease of reading. So, when would people need them? When are they 'sanctioned'?

Adding them to the site makes them seem 'official' and suggest they are 'supposed to be used'.

I don't want 'more bling'. :(

While this isn't a google font, I personally use Iosevka as my font - you can actually customize it to your own needs, which is what I like about it.

There's no specific 'use case' for these fonts other than to add flavor to posts. Although it should be said, I don't think the point is to make entire posts in these fonts. So to better answer your question, probably headings, important info locators, etc.
Unless there's a CSS trick out there that most aren't aware of, you can only use fonts that are imported to the site. Right now those are the ones above. It's not a 'supposed to use' situation, it's a 'are able to use' one.

I like Nicotine Stains for a Post-Ap font.

Dalelands makes for a nice Fantasy font.

Glastia Monoline, Wine by the Glass both makes for interesting handwriting fonts.

Clearly too many here, but here are some ones I found looking through Google Fonts:

Permanent Marker / Sedgwick Ave Display -- Grunge/Apocalyptic
Quintessential / Caesar Dressing / Jim Nightshade -- Old Book
Press Start 2P / Zen Tokyo Zoo / Shrikhand -- 80's/Retro
Special Elite / Courier Prime / IM Fell English SC -- Old Typewriter
Miniver / Architects Daughter -- Handwriting/Script
Unifraktur Cooking -- Fantasy
Orbitron -- Sci-Fi

Additional:
Rye -- Circus/Carnival
Creepster -- Horror
Smokum -- Western
Bangers -- Comic/Superhero

These do seem like they would be best for titles/ limited display (such as a note or something), and not for full text.

I do wanna mention, while I trust Adam to make any changes he thinks are good for the community, something big like fonts will also fall under veto range from me, and is something that'll be considered into v2.

Cool. Then let me explain what's being proposed. We're not adding fonts to the build or changing fonts used on the site or anything. It's just adding the import lines from google fonts for a small handful of fonts that people might find useful.

People have been using fonts for a while using the color tag. They're quite handy for showing languages (and for adding a bit of bling to annoy vagueGM apparently).



I think it can be seen that a good typewriter font could be used by CoC, and a sci-fi font for a robot's speech (apparently the numbers aren't very readable using Neuropol).

The problem is that the only fonts that can be used are the ones currently imported by the CSS. I think dumbledor and kelt were added for the "The One Ring" system. I don't know why aniron is in there.

To "include" another font would require a line like this in the css.
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Special+Elite&display=swap');

But if that's too far for v1 then obviously we'll back away from including them.

I have edited the original post to clarify that this is for testing first, and if testing doesn't work out, it'll have to wait for v2.

No, you bring up a good point, and I should have talked to you directly about it first. My apologies for that, and yah, definitely worth exploring.

No hard feelings here! We'll do it better all round the next time.

Sooooooo I would just like to officially inform everyone that I am FAR too reliant on the new gamersplane features to keep up with my threads. So reliant in fact that because this thread doesn't show up there, I could not, in fact, find it again. Don't worry, I've bookmarked it now.

Gugi and Geostar both did well on that last poll, though I'm curious to see which would have won if Audiowide hadn't been in there. We'll probably need to do follow-up poll at some point for that.

Next up is 80's/Retro. Choices are:
Press Start 2P
VT323
Syne Mono
Stalinist One
Zen Tokyo Zoo
Shrikhand

Took a while to get a good number of votes here. Might need a run-off here too, but before we do that, moving on!

This will probably be the polarizing one....

SCRIPTS!

Comforter
Quintessential
Architects Daughter
Permanent Marker
Caveat
Kaushan Script
Tangerine
Merienda One
Calligraffitti
Jim Nightshade



Same as before, I'll leave it up for a week or until we get enough to tell the top one or two.

Looks like we have those sorted out for now. Might need a run-off there too though; that was a busy category, and less than 1/5 of the votes were for any one choice.

Before that though, we have STENCIL/SKETCH. Here's the options:

Black Ops One
Cabin Sketch
Graduate
Saira Stencil One

Fairly clear top two there as well. Next up: Fantasy. We have some of these fonts already, but some of them don't size so well, so we're really just looking for a good, legible stand-in. Or two. Here's the top suggestions:

Aladin
Almendra SC
Eagle Lake
Germania One
Metamorphous
Uncial Antiqua

Cheers Falconloft!

Coming up with that list of fonts and organising the polls was super-useful. Those have been added to the F tag.