floriankarsten / space-grotesk

Space Grotesk: a proportional variant of the original fixed-width Space Mono family

Space Grotesk 2.0

Space Grotesk is a proportional sans-serif typeface variant based on Colophon Foundry's fixed-width Space Mono family (2016). Originally designed by Florian Karsten in 2018, Space Grotesk retains the monospace's idiosyncratic details while optimizing for improved readability at non-display sizes.

Space Grotesk includes Latin Vietnamese, Pinyin, and all Western, Central, and South-Eastern European language support, as well as several OpenType features (old-style and tabular figures, superscript and subscript numerals, fractions, stylistic alternates).

Building the Fonts

Family is built using fontmake and gftools post processing script. Tools are all python based.

To install all the Python tools into a virtualenv, do the following:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Then run the build script in the terminal:

cd sources
sh build.sh

License

Space Grotesk is licensed under the SIL Open Font License v1.1, see OFL.txt for details.

About Author

Florian Karsten Studio (Brno, Czech Republic) focuses on graphic design, type design and programming. We create websites, books, programmes, typefaces and above all, functional systems. We're excited about open-source and peer2peer networks.

Questions, comments, requests, suggestions: [email protected]

space-grotesk's Issues

Excellent work!!!

You're the best, mate!!!

Line height problem in web

Hello!

Maybe you know how to solve it:
Problem that the uppercase text (and normal text) not alignment to baseline.

https://take.ms/Y4uCo

For example roboto font: https://take.ms/U723Z

Bold vs Regular fonts

Hi,

I seem to have a problem with the installation of the different font types when using them in Microsoft Office.
The issue could be related to the fact, that both the Bold-type and the Regular-type are named "Space Grotesk" in the files, whereas the Light-type and the Medium-type are named "Space Grotesk Light" and "Space Grotesk Medium" respectively.
Thus, it seems like it is not able to distinguish between the fonts, when they have the same name in the file.
As can be seen here, when downloading the fonts, it only includes the Bold-type - probably because it is overwriting the Regular one.

No `periodcentered.loclCAT.case` glyph

U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT (periodcentered) has a Catalan variant for ⟨L·L⟩ or ⟨l·l⟩ (periodcentered.loclCAT) and a variant enabled by the 'case' feature (periodcentered.case), but there is no periodcentered.loclCAT.case for when both apply.

No distinction between lowercase L `l` and uppercase i `I`

There is not even a slight difference in the height of the letters, this can make it hard to read/funny to see in languages such as Italian where the world "il" ("the") is often at the beginning of a sentence, thus making it look like two vertical bars.

Although most people will be able to read it, it is preferable to have a terminal for the lowercase l l at least otherwise it does look funny and a bit unprofessional.

To fix this I would propose adding two more stylistic sets: one where the uppercase I I gets serifs (some people just like that), and one where lowercase l l get a small terminal at the bottom (look at IBM Plex Sans).

Add Space Mono as a MONO axis?

https://twitter.com/florian_karsten/status/1324747786508709888?s=19

V3 issue

Vertical alignment appears off

I'm not a type designer, so I might be mistaken, but the vertical alignment of Space Grotesk appears to be shifted too high when vertically centering the typeface in UI, and when compared to other typefaces.

I did a comparison of Space Grotesk Regular at 20px font size and 24px line-height/leading compared to other common sans-serif typefaces. I found that the baseline for Space Grotesk was 2 to 3 pixels higher within its bounding box compared to many other typefaces.

In this image, I'm only showing a few typefaces for a quick example, but I did this comparison with many others and found other typefaces to consistently have the baseline along the bottom two red guidelines (2 to 3 pixels lower than Space Grotesk's baseline). The blue box in this image depicts the bounding box, which is consistent across all samples, and represents the text's impact on layout for the web.

When I'm using Space Grotesk in my web work, I often have to compensate for this by manually shifting the text down by 1 or 2 pixels for things to be optically centered. This requires asymmetrical margins or padding and can be quite difficult to achieve in certain situations where layout is handled more globally.

If Space Grotesk had it's baseline shifted down by 2 pixels, it appears to better centered vertically:

To me, this looks more balanced, but would also save a substantial amount of effort when using it in projects.

I'm interested in hearing thoughts on this.

Wrong code point for Indian rupee

The glyph currently at U+20A8 RUPEE SIGN belongs at U+20B9 INDIAN RUPEE SIGN.

Document build script in README

README says "instructions will be here soon" :)

Vertical alignment issues

The font's vertical alignment is too far up. This started with version 1.1.4, version 1.1.3 was still fine.

Here is a minimal example for versions 1.1.3, 1.1.4 and 1.1.6 (latest):
https://glitch.com/~space-grotesk-alignment-test

This is how it looks on my Chrome on Linux:

When checking other browsers, I also encountered inconsistent rendering across different platforms and browsers that varies much more than it should. Note how 1.1.6 sometimes has no vertical spacing and how 1.1.4's vertical alignment is correct on some platforms while it forces its lines to be too tall.

Since version 1.1.3 rendered consistently and was aligned properly, I'm hoping this to be a change in your toolkit that can easily be fixed. Fingers crossed. :)

Attached are some screenshots I took using Browserstack. Please ignore the borders and bad sizing.

Windows Chrome:

Windows Firefox:

OSX Chrome:

OSX Firefox:

OSX Safari:

Awesome work - I'm sending you a Gitcash tip - trying it out atm, cheers

@GitCash send .0095 bch to @floriankarsten

Problem with the letter «e» at a certain font-size

I'm using Space Grotesk on my personal site and I love it: https://sascha.is/

If the font reaches 130px it somehow messes up the letter «e».
See screenshot:

Happens in Chrome & Brave. FF & Safari don't seem to have this issue.

Thanks a lot,
Sascha

Number 8 adjustment

Really like the typeface except for the number 8, which has for my taste too big upper part, making the 8 look odd and unbalanced especially at smaller sizes. Would love to see the upper part a bit narrower.

Request to include the ₿ (Bitcoin) currency symbol

i am really enjoying this type – thank you very much!
As it seems as Bitcoin ₿ got included into the currency symbols list of unicode and included in other fonts i would love to see it in space grotesk as well 🚀👩‍🚀.

https://twitter.com/ken_lunde/status/661351862155669506
https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15254.htm#145-C7
https://twitter.com/brandonnuman/status/1135784460366929920
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_symbol

Extended Cyrillic?

Awesome. Do you consider about the adding the Cyrillic Extended?

Thanks.

Website: use fonts via GF API

:)

Geometric/Display alternates

Thank you for this amazing font ❤️

I would like to suggest one stylistic alternate, namely rounder/wider, more geometric versions of some capital characters, e.g. 'O', 'C', 'G', etc. The characters would be closer to a circle. It would be useful when using the font for display purposes.

Release is outdated

Overview

Space Grotesk is currently on version 2, yet the release tag still shows version 1.1.6 as the latest version.

Typewriter quotes look like ending quotation marks

The typewriter quote " should be straight for use at the beginning and end of a quote.

In Space Grotesk, the typewriter quote looks like a closing quotation mark, ”. So, quotes using typewriter quotes look like ”this”, which does not look correct.

This is prevented by word processors that know to smartly replace typewriter quotes generated by most keyboards with the appropriate curved quotation marks “…”, but in most other places where text is displayed, this issue will appear.

Windows 10 Taskbar Clock "colon" Character Render Issue

Installed SG on latest Windows 10. Font's awesome everywhere, but the taskbar's clock's colon is a box instead of a colon. A quick google says it might be U+2236, but I'm not sure.

Here's a snip:

I can't replicate this issue in text editors; I'm not sure how to even type that specific character (ALT, followed by numpad+ followed by either the decimal or hex value for U+2236 did nothing interesting)

Fonts with various OpenType features enabled by default

Is there a way for me to compile this font using different stylistic sets by default in a non-web scenario? For instance, I want TNUM, ZERO, and SS04 enabled by default.

Remove RFN

Please remove the RFN from https://github.com/floriankarsten/space-grotesk/blob/master/OFL.txt#L3 (and in the fonts) so that they can be added to Google Fonts :)

Make serifs snap in

https://twitter.com/hhpapazian/status/1324754788232278021?s=19

It's possible to use the avar table to produce serifs that snap in

V3 issue

Variable font

Wondefull Work 💖
Does a variable version of it is on the table ?

What happened to the old alternate `g`?

I know there was always the angular lowercase g, and the double-story alternate g but I also remember a more traditional (not 90º angle) g. How can I find it?

U+220F N-ARY PRODUCT and U+2211 N-ARY SUMMATION are too short

U+220F N-ARY PRODUCT and U+2211 N-ARY SUMMATION should descend below the baseline, as is usual for n-ary operators. The current glyphs would be appropriate for U+03A0 GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI and U+03A3 GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA instead. Here they are, with ⟨R⟩ for comparison:

Bad ligature of U+031B COMBINING HORN and U+006F LATIN SMALL LETTER O

Version 2.000 ligates U+031B COMBINING HORN and U+006F LATIN SMALL LETTER O into another glyph that looks like a horn, effectively deleting the ⟨o⟩.

More Font Weights

I wish there would be a few more weight options. Especially bolder ones. Currently it's limited to a weight between 300 and 700. Using it in bigger sizes the font could push the limit to even bolder. 😉

PS: Also the variable font only includes two Regular weight presets. Would be handy to have the weights from the normal font here as Preset selection as well.

"R" letter is smaller then other letters (BOLD)

I 've noticed that the capital R is slightly smaller than the rest of the letters, but its only on Bold type face

Font Specimen Sheet for V2

Hearing about the V2 of Space Grotesk was great news! Thank you!
I am wondering if there is any specimen sheet where I can see the new version of the font!

Serifed I to match J (or remove serifs from J)

Space Grotesk has serifs on the capital J (also B and D), and it clashes with the sans-serif capital I. I say there should be serifs on both letters or neither for consistency.

If there is to be an OpenType choice between serifed and sans-serifed I, the serifed I should be default, to match the default J, B, and D.

OpenType features do not work (Missing OTF in Google Fonts package)

Take a look at the Space Grotesk website itself and scroll down to the section demonstrating the OpenType features.

It seems that this problem originates from Google Fonts. Only TTF fonts are included in the package hosted there.

UFO Sources

Hi!

I'd love to start working on italics for Space Grotesk, but I use FontForge on Windows, which can't open .glyphs sources. To contribute, it'd be lovely to get .ufo sources.

Thank you in advanced!

Greek alphabet

Any chance Greek letters will be added in the future?

Request to include the ₹ symbol

The typeface is dope. Please consider including the Indian Rupee Sign, i.e., ₹.

Issue with vertical alignment on the web?

Hi, I tried out the font on a site, but I'm getting weird vertical alignments. It seems like the font is aligned at the top of the letters, instead of the base?

Here's an example with three different line heights, 0, 1 and 2:

I tested with the variable font, OTF and WOFF2, but all had the same issue. Also tried setting different vertical-align-s, but no difference
Have you noticed this yourself, or am i doing something wrong?

Here is the font-family declaration i have:

@font-face {
  font-family: 'SpaceGrotesk';
  src: url('/static/fonts/SpaceGrotesk-Regular.otf') format('opentype');
  font-weight: 400;
  font-display: swap;
}

Incomplete stylistics sets

Some stylistic sets are incomplete.

'ss01' gives ⟨a⟩ a single-story glyph. All derivatives of ⟨a⟩ are affected too, except U+00AA FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR and U+0201 LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DOUBLE GRAVE. (It also skips ⟨æ⟩ but I assume that was intentional to avoid confusion with ⟨œ⟩.)

'ss05' adds serifs to ⟨I⟩ and its derivatives, except U+0208 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH DOUBLE GRAVE, U+020A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH INVERTED BREVE, and U+1E2E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS AND ACUTE. (It also skips ⟨IJ⟩ but I assume that was intentional, since 'ss04' applies to that.)

⟨B⟩ and its derivatives used to be sans-serif by default in previous versions, but now they have serifs by default, unless 'ss04' is enabled. The exceptions are U+0E3F THAI CURRENCY SYMBOL BAHT and U+20BF BITCOIN SIGN, which have no glyphs with serifs. Is that intentional?

add PANOSE

Recommend suitable fallback font when Space Grotesk not installed.

add Italic

Kerning after "ď"

Hi, please adjust the kerning after the "ď" letter. Can't use it like this in Czech language.

Add Space Grotesk to Google Fonts

Adding the font to Google Fonts would help a lot with distribution. For example we could easily use this with Figma. I understand this might need some work, but it would be definitely worth it.