from Hacker News

National Park Typeface (2019)

by luke2m on 12/16/21, 2:00 AM with 31 comments

  • by alanbernstein on 12/16/21, 4:51 AM

    For anyone who is interested in fonts that are literally intended to be used with router bits, there is an old font format called SHX (not the GIS thing) for this. I had been looking for such a thing for some time, and then I stumbled upon this post: https://forum.lightburnsoftware.com/t/shx-font-collection/25.... It's useful for CNC tasks where you really want to minimize the total path length of a given string.

    This National Park typeface is kind of funny to me, because it originates from a similar practical constraint, but adapting it to the finite-width OTF format eliminates the practical aspect of it. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I realize it's still useful.

  • by npilk on 12/16/21, 3:48 AM

    I love the look, but the kerning seems to be a little off, especially for initial caps. Try typing “Testing” into the test box. Although I guess you’d mostly use all caps anyways if you wanted the full “park sign” effect.

  • by PostOnce on 12/16/21, 10:26 AM

  • by duxup on 12/16/21, 3:27 AM

    I don’t really respond to typefaces like other do. Someone will point out Roboto or some other typeface and talk about how they like it , and I probably couldn’t tell it from any other.

    But typefaces with associations like this one actually get a response from me. Almost like there is something subliminal.

  • by dang on 12/16/21, 5:40 AM

    Discussed at the time:

    National Park Typeface - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20096120 - June 2019 (84 comments)

  • by artificialLimbs on 12/16/21, 4:57 AM

    I don’t know anything about fonts. (Aside from irl routing…) Why do people use fonts with which you can’t tell I from l (and sometimes 1!)?

  • by cirrus3 on 12/16/21, 4:05 AM

  • by CleanCoder on 12/16/21, 9:08 AM

    I want to ask "does this really need its own domain" but can't figure out which of my multiple personalities is behind it.

  • by a9h74j on 12/16/21, 5:28 AM

    Semi-related: IIRC, Hershey vector fonts were used in HP Basic, as for HP plotters.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey_fonts

  • by ChrisArchitect on 12/16/21, 4:34 PM

    (2019)

    Any reason for the share?