[HN Gopher] Sweden Sans
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Sweden Sans
        
       Author : 2143
       Score  : 214 points
       Date   : 2023-07-18 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (identity.sweden.se)
 (TXT) w3m dump (identity.sweden.se)
        
       | joduplessis wrote:
       | For a lot of the sections (esp. the Tone of motion section) - I
       | have to ask: why?
        
         | themodelplumber wrote:
         | Makes a lot of sense to me if you look at the examples, and
         | think of all the wacky things people will try to do with video
         | because they think they know that branding means "stick the
         | logo in the video somewhere".
         | 
         | It's adding consistency to the presentation and harmonizing
         | with any accompanying non-motion graphic styles, as you might
         | see in a cultural presentation environment with both
         | packaging/signage and video or interactive elements for
         | example.
        
           | joduplessis wrote:
           | I did and, in my opinion, they are far too generic to offer
           | any semblance of value in terms of video composition. I'm no
           | expert though, so maybe a videographer can chime in - but it
           | feels slightly pedantic.
        
             | themodelplumber wrote:
             | They're not telling you how to compose a video. They're
             | giving you something to compare with as you compose your
             | video. Too many other details will emerge, so it's a
             | guideline and not a how-to.
             | 
             | And, later, those guidelines give a designer an
             | institutionally-bought-in way to talk to someone without
             | talking down to them. Refer to the guideline and discuss
             | the guideline, not "I'm right, you're wrong." It's not
             | meant as purely a technical spec as it may be interpreted
             | by more tech-oriented mindsets IOW.
        
       | etiennemarcel wrote:
       | France also has its own design system and font (Marianne):
       | https://www.systeme-de-design.gouv.fr/elements-d-interface/f...
        
         | nicbou wrote:
         | Berlin has Berlin Type
         | 
         | https://wir.berlin/kampagnen/die-typo
        
           | fmajid wrote:
           | The UK has GDS Transport, which can only be used on gov.uk
           | websites, not even internal UK government websites.
           | 
           | https://design-system.service.gov.uk/styles/typography/
           | 
           | The British government may be an omnishambles, but their
           | websites are remarkably clear and readable, specially for an
           | aging population with worsening eyesight.
        
             | CSMastermind wrote:
             | Building an atlas of these for every country in the world
             | seems like a fun project.
        
         | The_Double wrote:
         | To add to the list: The Netherlands has "rijksoverheid"
         | (government) in sans and serif.
         | https://www.rijkshuisstijl.nl/publiek/modules/product/Digita...
        
         | tuukkah wrote:
         | The focus is very different though as the Swedish one is a
         | brand guide for country marketing purposes while this is for
         | developing government services.
        
       | DaveFlater wrote:
       | Sweden Sans logically implies America Bold and Italy Italic
        
         | runlaszlorun wrote:
         | America... puttin' the comic back into Comic Sans...
        
         | blowski wrote:
         | Not Bolivia Bold?
        
           | microtherion wrote:
           | Bolivia Underlined
        
         | Telemakhos wrote:
         | > America Bold
         | 
         | Sadly, it's Calibri.
         | https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/us/politics/state-departm...
        
       | elromulous wrote:
       | https://archive.is/7ytlz
       | 
       | I think we hugged it to death.
        
         | cinntaile wrote:
         | It's kind of sad that sweden.se can't handle a couple of
         | thousand visitors under a short period of time.
        
           | worksonmine wrote:
           | It is, my Pi 2 could handle 10,000 req/s and this page could
           | easily be cached or even static. What kind of traffic does
           | the HN frontpage generate?
        
           | arp242 wrote:
           | sweden.se is fine; it's identity.sweden.se that's having some
           | problems. This is a really limited site with a target
           | audience that's normally in the hundreds, perhaps thousands,
           | of developers. It's probably just running on a cheap
           | server/VPS somewhere, which is fine almost all of the time.
        
             | KomoD wrote:
             | No, it's running on debroome which uses AWS.
        
         | jen729w wrote:
         | Sorry, I know HN isn't a support forum, but am I the only one
         | who gets "Safari couldn't establish a secure connection" to any
         | of the archive.xx sites? It's been happening for ages now.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | hultner wrote:
           | I've been experiencing this intermittently lately as well.
        
           | satysin wrote:
           | Are you using Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS by any chance?
        
             | jen729w wrote:
             | No, I use Apple's Private Relay which might route via
             | Cloudflare but I've tried it with it turned off and it
             | makes no difference.
             | 
             | It must be something in my network path because I just
             | tethered to my phone's 4G connection and it works. Odd.
        
             | arjvik wrote:
             | Does Cloudflare DNS block it? Or are you proposing
             | Cloudflare DNS as a solution?
        
               | satysin wrote:
               | It's a long story! https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-
               | archive-is-blocked/
               | 
               | In short if you use Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS then some
               | archive.is domains won't load so you should perhaps use
               | another DNS server.
               | 
               | Edit: Not because 1.1.1.1 is in the wrong it is just what
               | the person behind archive.is recommends as he will not be
               | changing his position and neither will Cloudflare so it's
               | a bit of a stalemate.
        
               | whatgoodisaroad wrote:
               | this story does more to persuade me to switch _to_
               | 1.1.1.1
        
               | hostcontroller wrote:
               | It's the other way around. The site blocks Cloudflare for
               | some political reasons that have been mentioned here
               | before, but I can't remember what they were.
        
       | Sunspark wrote:
       | I love looking at new fonts but from the perspective of book
       | readability, this one I feel has the letter spacing too close
       | together, and possibly also too narrow letters.
        
       | rickreynoldssf wrote:
       | Having lived in Sweden, this font makes me hungry for lingonberry
       | and bacon.
        
         | bjoli wrote:
         | Cloudberry jam and vanilla ice cream!
        
       | Kon5ole wrote:
       | I am fascinated by typography and page design and enjoy reading
       | about it, but I have to admit I don't understand how this level
       | of pedantry is able to survive.
       | 
       | The amount of documentation and attention to detail spent on
       | typefaces and when to use them is often off the charts compared
       | to the time spent on stuff like keeping the website running,
       | documenting the API or even the basic functionality of the app.
       | 
       | It's like if someone grows oak trees for a century and slices
       | veneer from it with a handcrafted blade and soaks it in coconut
       | oil for a year before slapping it on a IKEA pulp honeycomb. :)
        
         | at-fates-hands wrote:
         | >> I am fascinated by typography and page design and enjoy
         | reading about it
         | 
         | You should check out the Netflix series:
         | 
         | Abstract: The Art of Design Episode: Jonathan Hoefler: Typeface
         | Design
         | 
         | The guy has some of the most important typefaces. The episode
         | does an amazing job detailing his career and how they develop
         | new typefaces. His work is literally everywhere and its super
         | fascinating some of the misconceptions about type.
        
         | themodelplumber wrote:
         | This type of guideline can be extremely helpful in a number of
         | ways. People at various levels and with various levels of
         | training tend to love to be creative at the expense of huge
         | brand campaigns, so the branding design team has to find ways
         | to reign in those passions. Technical access is generally much
         | more limited for such people than is access to de facto brand
         | representation through graphical presentation.
         | 
         | If it's a differential comparison vs. tech then that
         | differential should be treated as its own issue, not an issue
         | of design guidelines deserving a label like pedantry just
         | because something else isn't as well-planned or documented.
        
         | mlsu wrote:
         | It is actually amazing how much effort is seemingly expended on
         | things like this.
         | 
         | I think it's pretty simple:
         | 
         | - there are a lot of people out there who love obsessing over
         | typography
         | 
         | - they want to obsess over typography
         | 
         | - so they invent a purpose for obsessing over typography
         | 
         | I love it, I'm here for it, and I think we should give people
         | money for obsessing over typography.
        
           | Kon5ole wrote:
           | I suspect you're on to something ;-)
           | 
           | It might also be that people who obsess about typography are
           | more inclined to create pretty documents whenever they can.
           | API authors and DB designers are maybe less interested in
           | making pretty documents, which is why their (at the very
           | least equally important work) is often described in a
           | readme.txt meant to be read from the terminal in the typeface
           | of the reader's choice.
        
             | jacobr1 wrote:
             | I've met DBAs, when that role was more common, that
             | obsessed over creating ERDs and other data digrams - posted
             | them all over the walls. But that was because they wanted
             | to do it and were sufficiently empowered. It clearly was
             | related to their work, but most other engineers wouldn't
             | really have cared if they existed or not.
        
           | imiric wrote:
           | I think that's an overly cynical take for the work type
           | designers do.
           | 
           | Design in general is highly detail oriented. In interior
           | design, there are philosophies about the proper arrangement
           | of furniture (feng shui). In visual design the balance of
           | colors is crucial, and there are complex theories about the
           | best ways to match and offset colors. This is highly
           | technical work that might seem overly pedantic to outsiders,
           | but really has an established theory about how it impacts the
           | viewer.
           | 
           | So is the case with type design. There are infinite
           | combinations of shapes and sizes of symbols, and an entire
           | science behind how humans interpret characters to form words
           | and communicate ideas. Think about how much design went into
           | just this paragraph you're reading. A bad type can be tiring
           | to read, while a good one can make the words flow off the
           | page/screen. As readers, we take this for granted, but a type
           | designer needs to take all this into consideration.
           | 
           | Consider the work it takes to design a logotype, and how it
           | sometime seems deceptively simple, when in reality it takes a
           | keen eye to design a brand logo. Now extrapolate that to all
           | letters of all alphabets that a modern type should support,
           | and it's no wonder that great type designers deserve all the
           | praise and recognition.
           | 
           | So, yes, all these documents are necessary, and explain the
           | intent of the designer, or how the user feels the type helps
           | with transmitting their message.
        
           | MAGZine wrote:
           | It is actually amazing how much effort is seemingly expended
           | on things like this.
           | 
           | I think it's pretty simple:
           | 
           | - there are a lot of people out there who love obsessing over
           | software
           | 
           | - they want to obsess over software
           | 
           | - so they invent a purpose for obsessing over software
           | 
           | I love it, I'm here for it, and I think we should give people
           | money for obsessing over software.
           | 
           | Just because it's simple on the surface does not mean that
           | there's a lot that goes into it, or that the details don't
           | matter. I feel like what you've written is a little
           | reductionist to the hard work people put into designing
           | frameworks for communications like this, and how much it can
           | help to give voice and unify messaging in intra- and inter-
           | institution communication. How do you keep two government
           | agencies on the same page wrt to design language? or is it ok
           | that one agency likes to produce communications in comic sans
           | while the other uses sans and the third uses helvetica?
           | 
           | It's one of those 99% invisible things.
        
           | notatoad wrote:
           | i think it's even simpler
           | 
           | - there are not that many people out there who love obsessing
           | about typography
           | 
           | - the few that do have figured out that they can make a
           | viable business of selling typefaces for slightly less than
           | the cost of licencing helvetica
           | 
           | - writing a document like the one linked here makes people
           | feel a bit better about cutting a big cheque for a typeface
        
         | agloe_dreams wrote:
         | Typographic documentation is for designers generally, but there
         | is a world where this can actually help everyone. Designers
         | should make consistent designs. By doing this Developers can
         | create functional designs systems that have sane default
         | behaviors. Once you can get to that point, the system serves to
         | reduce the load from the dev, not increase.
         | 
         | I have created a tailwind-based design system interpretation
         | like this in the education space at a rather large scale. Our
         | designs and our tailwind-config comes from the same spec.
         | 
         | Doing this removes the engineer from thought by reducing
         | options and possibilities. It also serves as check and balance.
         | Paddings, font-weights, all of it are consistent. Designs that
         | deviate from line-height, padding, weights, colors, etc are
         | incorrect mocks and our configured values will make it obvious
         | to the dev. Code that deviates from the spec is incorrect. This
         | requires a good communication flow between Eng and UX but
         | actually works in practice.
         | 
         | In a functioning system, it is a weight off your shoulders as
         | you end up knowing the defaults just by looking at something.
         | 
         | Might I also remind you, the point of the entire backend of an
         | app is to serve the front end. An app with amazing backend
         | practices but fails at matching designs or specs is just a
         | failure and is noticeable by customers.
        
           | blowski wrote:
           | I agree with much of your comment, but take umbrage with:
           | 
           | > the point of the entire backend of an app is to serve the
           | front end
           | 
           | It's a phoney argument. Once can just as easily say "the
           | whole point of a front end is to provide simple access to the
           | backend, rather than doing it via APIs".
           | 
           | The whole system is important.
           | 
           | Some backends have appalling frontends and are still popular.
           | The opposite is also true.
        
             | agloe_dreams wrote:
             | I was kinda hoping that the OP would counter with that line
             | and then I would agree and make exactly your point haha. My
             | point was simply that the system is interdependent as
             | opposed to the OP's take that the FE consistency doesn't
             | matter.
        
           | Kon5ole wrote:
           | Good points which I generally agree with, but I still think
           | it's common to see a remarkable level of time and effort
           | spent on typography compared to even other parts of the
           | frontend. Not always, but surprisingly often.
           | 
           | Many companies have these style guides around typography.
           | Beautiful, thoughtful, very well made things for sure, yet
           | when some backend dev makes a typo so the custom font drops
           | to arial or whatever, it can be days before someone notices
           | and the ones who notice are the font nerds from marketing.
           | Nobody else seems to mind much.
           | 
           | Compare that with what happens if someone misunderstands the
           | 20 year old SQL schema and writes the wrong magic string to a
           | table. Instant crash, everybody notices immediately. Yet
           | database schemas for internal applications tend not to be
           | documented in Porsche-brochure-like sites like this Sweden
           | Sans is.
           | 
           | How did the typography guys get a voice so strong? Note that
           | I don't mind it, I like to see well made things in general,
           | but it's puzzling. It's like there is a secret society of
           | typography nerds that have spread to all major organisations.
           | 
           | >Might I also remind you, the point of the entire backend of
           | an app is to serve the front end. An app with amazing backend
           | practices but fails at matching designs or specs is just a
           | failure and is noticeable by customers.
           | 
           | Just checked my notes and it turns out that frontend is just
           | a temporary fashion-dictated skin over the actually important
           | features of the backend! ;-)
        
             | bobthepanda wrote:
             | Graphics design manuals predate computers. They were first
             | used in the real world, with real physical objects like
             | signs, and perhaps the most famous is the London
             | Underground, whose font is pretty much synonymous with
             | British culture at this point.
        
             | eastof wrote:
             | I don't think it's that puzzling. After designing the
             | typeface, those same designers have time to sit down and
             | write up a fancy brochure for it. Engineers on the other
             | hand, have a long list of existing tickets, so the minute
             | they fix the broken magic string, there's another fix to
             | move on to and no time to write a fancy brochure about the
             | SQL schema.
        
               | rhaway84773 wrote:
               | The irony, of course, is that codebases would be a lot
               | better if developers did sit down at the end of a project
               | and wrote high quality documentation for it. Even better
               | if they did it while developing the codebase.
               | 
               | Also, this comment is especially ironic on HN where the
               | top 10 comments on every Show HN submission will be
               | nitpicking about the design of the website or the wording
               | used, etc.
        
             | jacobolus wrote:
             | > _How did the typography guys get a voice so strong?_
             | 
             | In my opinion the "typography guys" don't have an
             | especially stronger "voice" than anyone else. They just do
             | a job once, get paid some (relatively small) amount for it,
             | and then move on to the next project. At the biggest these
             | projects involve a few people working for a year or two.
             | Their entire job is about communication, sales, and
             | sweating small design details, so it's no wonder they do a
             | relatively good job at those.
             | 
             | The amount of work those "20 year old SQL schemas" take,
             | once you include every bit of other comparable detail
             | across a whole organization, is (at least) thousands of
             | times bigger and more complicated. Overall the "code guys"
             | have much more resources spent, spend a lot more time, and
             | everyone ultimately cares a lot more about their output.
             | They are large teams of either long-term employees or long-
             | term contractors, whose work never really ends.
             | 
             | In short: Code is a sprawling mess rather than a cutely
             | packaged self-contained thing. Unsurprisingly it's harder
             | to make sense of at a glance.
        
             | FredPret wrote:
             | Because visual people accomplish work by showing people the
             | work.
             | 
             | Backend people accomplish work by making systems work.
             | 
             | For that reason you've seen many fonts and many working
             | websites, but not as many people showing how they created a
             | font or made their website work.
        
             | TylerE wrote:
             | > but I still think it's common to see a remarkable level
             | of time and effort spent on typography compared to even
             | other parts of the frontend
             | 
             | We spend a lot more time reading body text than scrolling
             | through menus or fiddling with radiobuttons.
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | It is generally different roles of people working on design
         | guides like this versus working on documenting an API or other
         | "basic functionality". It's not necessarily a zero sum effort
         | (and probably often is entirely not) to produce design guides
         | and work on other technical requirements at the same time.
         | 
         | Also, design, including and sometimes especially typography,
         | _is_ accessibility and is often worth that sort of attention to
         | detail for exactly that reason, keeping designs accessible to
         | all users. Defining contrasts and visual hierarchy hugely
         | influences how accessible something using a design might be.
         | 
         | One specific example I see is the callout in this particular
         | example for using much less UPPERCASE text moving forward from
         | whatever their previous design language was. This is something
         | I know that I've fought designers I've worked with over as an
         | accessibility problem they've missed. (It's also something that
         | Microsoft went through a huge accidental blow up in very public
         | with early "Metro" designs that they had to apologize for and
         | then walk back in consequent "Fluent" designs.) In general
         | people read word shapes more than individual letters, uppercase
         | forms a lot of very similar looking "rectangles" and even for
         | readers with no other obvious dyslexia uppercase words are the
         | visual equivalent of "speed bumps" in a roadway. They slow
         | reading, sometimes to a crawl, and generally just get in the
         | way, for _all_ readers. (For dyslexic readers I 've known they
         | sometimes are even more "walls" than simply "speed bumps" and
         | text entirely in uppercase will completely upset them, if not
         | make the content 100% inaccessible to them and they will nope
         | out entirely.)
         | 
         | That's an important thing about typography that is easy to
         | miss. I've seen so many designs use all uppercase text in
         | places simply because it "looks nice" (those "all words create
         | about the same sort of rectangular shape" that makes a dyslexic
         | viewpoint absolutely hate seeing all uppercase text add a
         | regularity and "cleanliness" to design shapes that some
         | designers find they love; one person's massive accessibility
         | bug is another's aesthetic feature).
        
       | tomalaci wrote:
       | We just hugged Sweden to death.
        
         | intothemild wrote:
         | Normally any kind of social interaction has the same effect...
         | Especially eye contact over a couple seconds.
        
           | glonq wrote:
           | Finland says hi. From 3 meters away.
        
       | ComputerGuru wrote:
       | Site is barely loading (probably due to being on HN). Here's an
       | archive copy: https://archive.is/7ytlz
        
       | roughly wrote:
       | Part of me desperately wishes they'd picked a serif font.
        
       | mrintegrity wrote:
       | There are quite a few grammatical errors on that page which is
       | surprising, as much because of the sites subject as the fact that
       | Swedes excel at English
        
         | kdmccormick wrote:
         | site's
        
           | sib wrote:
           | "page, which"
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | askonomm wrote:
       | Not to take away from Sweden, but Estonia also has something like
       | this: https://brand.estonia.ee/guidelines/typography/?lang=en
        
         | davee5 wrote:
         | Beauty in the eye of the beholder and all, but the Swedish work
         | is largely quite pretty and readable where the Estonian
         | guidelines are an excellent of what designers do when they can
         | get away with it or the client is too compliant / eager to be
         | different. (source: am designer)
         | 
         | The intro claims the character of the Estonia brand is "nordic,
         | surprising, smart" but the Aino font in particular seems way
         | too focused on being surprising at the expense of legibility,
         | which certainly diminishes expression of the smart element.
        
       | michaelmior wrote:
       | I can't be the only one who finds that the headings are far too
       | close to the body text.
        
       | astrolx wrote:
       | More recently I found about Finlandica for Finland, quite nice
       | too. https://toolbox.finland.fi/brand-identity-and-
       | guidelines/fin...
        
         | smlacy wrote:
         | Wow, this is really nice looking. Almost monospaced, and could
         | easily be tweaked into a really nice looking font for
         | programming.
        
       | TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
       | I think this is just for some site focussed at promoting Sweden's
       | image to foreigners? I don't think I've ever seen this font in
       | use in normal communications from the Swedish state, living here
       | in Sweden.
       | 
       | I like the Swedish Tax Agency's design language, if it can be
       | called that. I don't think they use this Sweden Sans, but I'm not
       | sure what they _do_ use.
        
         | ricardobayes wrote:
         | It's definitely interesting how countries have their own PR
         | these days. And it's working, if you think of a nordic country,
         | chances are, Sweden is the first one that comes to mind.
        
           | tuukkah wrote:
           | It happens to be the biggest (excluding Greenland).
        
             | Sharlin wrote:
             | Biggest by population by a wide margin.
        
         | darkclouds wrote:
         | > I think this is just for some site focussed at promoting
         | Sweden's image to foreigners?
         | 
         | I did think that myself, certainly a bit of space and
         | countryside to enjoy and getting around Sweden doesnt take long
         | if you have a motorbike...
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXiIJ32kaZU
         | 
         | Someone on Sweden was saying the Police have to catch you on
         | the day to prove you are the driver, but I think I will stick
         | to the German autobahns, less moose on the loose.
         | 
         | ghost rider patrik furstenhoff
        
         | mikae1 wrote:
         | _> I think this is just for some site focussed at promoting
         | Sweden 's image to foreigners?_
         | 
         | It's run by the Swedish Institute.
         | 
         |  _> The Swedish Institute is a public agency that builds
         | interest and trust in Sweden around the world. We work with
         | Sweden promotion, cooperation in the Baltic Sea region and
         | global development._ [...] _SI's operations are financed mainly
         | through appropriations directly through the state budget. SI
         | has approximately 470 million Swedish government funds in four
         | areas: international cooperation, international assistance,
         | education and university research and business._ [1]
         | 
         | [1] https://si.se/en/about-si/our-mission/
        
         | sakjur wrote:
         | I believe Sweden Sans is used as title typeface on the most
         | recent national ID-cards and passports.
        
           | astrolx wrote:
           | Yep
        
       | rav wrote:
       | Sweden using O for 0 is so insensitive towards their fellow
       | Scandic neighbors to the west! Such a Swedish thing to do.
        
       | antipaul wrote:
       | No italic
        
       | ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
       | Crossbars on the capital "i": CHECK
       | 
       | Zero distinguished from capital "o"? CHECK
       | 
       | APPROVED
        
       | mongol wrote:
       | > Inspired by the old signages system in Sweden
       | 
       | I am interested in this part. Which signage system does it refer
       | to? It does not immediately ring a bell for me.
        
         | jffry wrote:
         | I found a Guardian article [1] which quotes one of the people
         | involved:                 "We started to think about how it
         | would work with different typefaces, then started mood boards
         | with different fonts and pictures - especially of old Swedish
         | signs we'd seen from the 1940s and 50s," said Jesper Robinell,
         | Soderhavet's head of design.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/14/sweden-sans-
         | de...
        
           | mongol wrote:
           | I was originally thinking of the old Stockholm subway signage
           | typeface. But it does not look similar
           | 
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esseltub
           | 
           | https://fontsgeek.com/fonts/Esseltub-Regular
        
       | EastLondonCoder wrote:
       | Made by the design agency Soderhavet in Stockholm. More info here
       | https://soderhavet.com/work/sweden/
        
         | jamesblonde wrote:
         | Soderhavet are not even in Soder - they're on Brunkebergsgatan
         | 10, near t-centralen.
        
           | nnnnnande wrote:
           | I'd wager that it's a reference to the old Swedish name for
           | the Pacific Ocean and not Sodermalm.
        
             | thomashabets2 wrote:
             | Soderhavet is the Pacific? But that makes no sense,
             | geographically!
        
               | zgluck wrote:
               | Being an early adopter sucks.
               | 
               |  _In the early 16th century, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez
               | de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and
               | sighted the great "Southern Sea" which he named Mar del
               | Sur (in Spanish). Afterwards, the ocean's current name
               | was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan
               | during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521,
               | as he encountered favorable winds on reaching the ocean.
               | He called it Mar Pacifico, which in Spanish, Portuguese
               | and Italian means 'peaceful sea'._
               | 
               | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean#Etymology)
        
             | INTPenis wrote:
             | Pippi i Soderhavet are my favorite old records from
             | childhood. :)
        
       | RandallBrown wrote:
       | It's called Sweden Sans, but it appears to have serifs on at
       | least some of the letters like lowercase i and l. Am I
       | misunderstanding what a serif is? Or am I understanding what sans
       | means in this context?
        
         | AtNightWeCode wrote:
         | What you are not understanding is how corps are selling fonts.
         | The Font is garbage.
        
         | bobbylarrybobby wrote:
         | The regular and bold versions probably qualify as slab serifs,
         | but the "book" weight is a true sans. (Might be easiest to see
         | if you just download the font and look at the OTF files.)
        
         | Zetobal wrote:
         | The right term would be Slab Serif.
        
         | giraffe_lady wrote:
         | It isn't a strict category like that. It is more like an
         | indicator of the general font lineage the designer considers it
         | to be in.
         | 
         | But plenty of sans fonts have a handful of serifs, particularly
         | on the mistakable chars like l. And especially if they're
         | expected to be used in technical contexts or as an "everything
         | all the time" font like this one.
        
         | karaterobot wrote:
         | Yeah, it looks like there are some slab serifs in there. I
         | guess you could generously say that serif and sans-serif are
         | handles on either end of what is really a spectrum. It may be
         | simpler to call it a sans-serif, because if you called it a
         | serif, people would expect it to be more serify.
        
         | themodelplumber wrote:
         | There's a lot of wiggle room. Sometimes a font designer will
         | even throw in a single serif because hey--this is also an
         | emotive art. Or maybe for a specific reason due to the project
         | spec.
         | 
         | When I used to teach typography in the 2000s, sometimes
         | students would point this out. Or as an example of a beginner's
         | lesson, they'd use a font without really examining it, and some
         | detail about the font would catch them out later.
         | 
         | It's weird but most people pick fonts without really thinking
         | about the font itself, or even reading its name, let alone
         | examining it. They are thinking about their design, their
         | thoughts & feelings, their message, their amazing design
         | opportunity, or whatever.
         | 
         | Skilled designers need to be trained to think about whether
         | they're basically hallucinating the purpose of the font, as a
         | few seconds of inspection will often make the original purpose
         | really obvious. To people who learn how this works, it becomes
         | just that obvious why those slab serifs might be in there.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | (2014)
       | 
       | Something new here?
        
         | ChrisArchitect wrote:
         | More looks from the designer https://so-type.com/custom/sweden-
         | sans/
        
       | s-xyz wrote:
       | I think its quite good... not just the design but that they apply
       | something governmental so thorough and modern.
        
       | omoikane wrote:
       | I find it funny that they used Neng Deng san (Noto-san) in the
       | example text for Noto Sans. I wonder if that's a reference to
       | Neng Deng Ma Mei Zi  (Noto Mamiko)?
        
       | bjourne wrote:
       | I am Swedish and I've never heard of the Sweden Sans font before.
       | The font doesn't look very "Swedish" to me and is completely
       | different from the font used on road signage, for example. For
       | running text the font doesn't work at all imo.
        
       | fnord77 wrote:
       | ultimately derived from Switzerland, the font (Helvetica)
        
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