[JimDabell]

> System fonts were initially created for legibility at certain screen resolutions, for dot-matrix printers, etc.

I think you’ve gotten mixed up between the system-ui font and the browser default font.

The system-ui font is modern. It was only added to CSS about ten years ago. It’s not Times New Roman. It wasn’t designed for dot matrix printers.

Everybody else here is talking about something that fits in with the rest of the system. You seem to be talking about something from the early 90s.

[noduerme]

Most current system screen fonts in major OSs - as a general group, as a set of letter forms - are not and never were printed fonts. They evolved from bitmap fonts that were created with 90s constraints in mind. They retain some of that aesthetic, and they are not usually the best candidate for the job.

Leaving it up to your user's system font is also an arguably poor choice.

[alwillis]

> Most current system screen fonts in major OSs - as a general group, as a set of letter forms - are not and never were printed fonts. They evolved from bitmap fonts that were created with 90s constraints in mind. They retain some of that aesthetic, and they are not usually the best candidate for the job.

This couldn't be more wrong. Things have progressed since the '90s.

Apple, Google, Microsoft hired real typographers to create their new fonts. Apple uses San Francisco in their printed materials all the time.

On Apple devices, system-ui is San Francisco, a TrueType variable font with 2937 glyphs, 4 axes and 369 instances. The axes are width, optical size, grade and weight. San Francisco also has all of the goodies someone who cares about typography could want: ligatures, small caps, contextual alternatives, true fractions, etc.

I think this qualifies as "giving a shit". ;-)

BTW, you can see each named instance in the developer tools in Firefox and Chrome on macOS.

An instance is a combination of the 4 axes; the instance of San Francisco compressed thin uses can be specified in CSS as:

    font-variation-settings: "wdth" 47, "opsz" 28, "GRAD" 400, "wght" 120.702

Apple went into detail a few years ago about creating San Francisco [1][2].

So developers/designers get all the features variable fonts have to offer without having to download anything.

Google has done something similar with Noto.

[1]: "WWDC Introducing San Francisco, the New System Fonts" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpveNRh-jXU

[2]: "Meet the expanded San Francisco font family" -- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/110381