<![CDATA[Gizmodo: ascender]]> http://tags.gizmodo.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gizmodo.com.png <![CDATA[Gizmodo: ascender]]> http://gizmodo.com/tag/ascender http://gizmodo.com/tag/ascender <![CDATA[The Inside Story of the Android Font]]> We've complained (maybe carped is a better word) about the lack of design unity in Android, but the truth is, there is one design element that's consistent across the entire OS: the Droid font, the result of an intense, two-year collaboration between digital typeface company Ascender and Google.

Throughout the design process, it swung from bubbly, candy-coated Google cuteness to a harsher, blocky techno style before something more neutral and approachable was settled on—Droid. It's the only font on the phone—apps will use it too, since it's in the SDK—with three variants: serif, sans serif and monospace. So it's a good thing they took their time.

Unfortunately don't expect the usual Google easter eggs, since it was thought they would annoy developers, though I would've liked to see that Android icon. Typography geeks, what's your take? [Forbes]

]]> http://gizmodo.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5055299&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[System Fonts for Android Look Clean and Google-y]]> Font talk isn't exactly stimulating (unless you're scary weird), but it's worth giving the fonts Ascender's developed for Android's system UI a close look since you'll be looking closely at them in Android's app menus, web browser and other texty situations. Overall, they seem pretty clean with a nice smoothness to them, and if they're being accurately represented size-wise, definitely readable from a decent distance away. More specifics, and your thoughts, this way:

The Droid family of fonts consists of Droid Sans, Droid Sans Mono and Droid Serif. Each contains extensive character set coverage including Western Europe, Eastern/Central Europe, Baltic, Cyrillic, Greek and Turkish support. The Droid Sans regular font also includes support for Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean support for the GB2312, Big 5, JIS 0208 and KSC 5601 character sets respectively.
For carriers, developers and manufacturers, Ascender's also willing to bend, shape, twist and tweak the Droid fonts, throw in additional language support or whip a whole new set of typefaces to go along with Android.

What do you guys think of what they've already got? [Typophile via Daring Fireball]

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