«You’re only going to use it a certain way – you’re obviously not going to write a dissertation!»
San Francisco follows on from the typefaces created for Apple by in-house designer Susan Kare in the 1980s, each named after an international city including Chicago, which was used on early iPods. Apple commented that it «developed a new typeface to maximise legibility» on the device when it was unveiled in September. News: the typeface used on the recently unveiled Apple Watch has been made available to download alongside a kit of tools for developers who are customising apps for the device. Apple has only designed one other font in-house since 1993 – the company’s 2001 corporate typeface Myriad. Recent typography stories we’ve covered include a typeface designed to be easier for people with dyslexia to read and a «ghostly» typeface created by overlaying each letter of the alphabet from over 900 existing font families. The sans-serif typeface, named San Francisco, comes in 23 variations and was designed in-house by Apple’s team for use on the watch’s 3.8-centimetre display. The company’s head designer, Jonathan Ive, spoke about how the Apple Watch isn’t designed for reams of text during a talk at London’s Design Museum last week.
