Do you also hate the new System Helvetica in Mac OS X Mavericks (10.10)?

[chevalier]

I cannot stand the new default system typography "HelveticaNeueDeskInterface". Huge emphasis on HATE. Wish I knew who at Apple to direct my rage. Luckily, I am not the only one and someone found a work around. While the article uses some extreme and ugly substitutions I have been successful and very happy with using these as replacements:

• Gotham Bold (SYSTEM BOLD: ".HelveticaNeueDeskInterface-Bold")
• Gotham Book (SYSTEM REGULAR: ".HelveticaNeueDeskInterface-Regular")
• Gotham Book Italic (SYSTEM ITALIC: ".HelveticaNeueDeskInterface-Italic")
• Gotham Light (SYSTEM LIGHT: ".HelveticaNeueDeskInterface-Light")

I played with a number of Sans Serif and Humanist Sans fonts including Univers, Avenir, Grotesque, Frutiger, Vectora. My second favorite was Museo which oddly enough is the official marketing font of Dell (gasp). Anyway, I was able to enable and disable it quickly (literally drop and drag and restart) and without issue. The only quirk that I have observed is that the system battery percentage (I work with a MBP) and date/time are shifted up.

Link to Article (macissues.com)

 

[chevalier]

Doh! This should be titled Yosemite instead of Mavericks.

Request to mod... can you make the change?

 

[zevrix]

I agree - the new font on Yosemite is absolutely HORRENDOUS.

It's like they had to make a huge effort at Apple to find something as ridiculous and illegible as this font - and then refine to make it even worse..

Letters stick together. Lowercase "e" almost turns into "o". Both 6 and 9 can be easily mistaken for 8 or zero. I use Mac since 1993 - and never before I had to almost stick my nose into the screen to find out what number it is.

The entire UI looks like a mistake with this font - or a joke.

Being a software developer, I can't replace it on my Mac, as I must know how my software looks on machines with standard setup. But I did submit several reports about it to Apple through its developer channel.

I encourage you to send them feedback via their website - if you haven't already anyway.


Cheers,
Leo
===
Solutions for Adobe InDesign, Graphics, Print & File Delivery | Zevrix Solutions

 

[chevalier]

I think they're trying to unify iOS and MacOSX GUI which is not necessarily a bad idea. I hated the latest iOS refresh as well at first. I adapted to the Yosemite GUI well enough. It is not my favorite but definitely not my least favorite OS X GUI. I'm guessing Johnny Ive is the culprit behind the Helvetica Neue. Given that he grew up surrounded by one of the most beautiful san serif typefaces ever conceived, the mother of all Humanist fonts: Johnston (wikipedia) you'd think he'd have better taste in typography.

 

[zevrix]

Yeah, a Johnston-like font would be much better!

As to iOS, I took a more radical approach: switched to Android. as much as I'm an Apple fan, I can't be happier. Main reasons:

-Simple UI that still doesn't look like a schoolchild sketches. (Here's a fun site on Ive's love of gradients: Jony Ive Redesigns Things)

-I can disable ALL animations and convulsions of the UI.

-I can replace stock apps for SMS, phone etc. with much better alternatives.


Oh and I just discovered how to disable the most annoying new feature of Yosemite: the convulsing focus ring. Life is much better now:

https://twitter.com/rsesek/status/563072586754850816


Otherwise, I do like the direction of simplifying and de-aquafying of Mac's UI - although Apple still has to do some work to get it right.


Leo
===
Solutions for Adobe InDesign, Graphics, Print & File Delivery | Zevrix Solutions

 

[Sherbert]

Care to share a screenshot for those still on Mavericks?

 

[chevalier]

Somebody at Apple got the message!
Apple to Use 'San Francisco' Apple Watch Font in iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 - Mac Rumors
http://bgr.com/2015/05/25/ios-9-os-x-10-11-san-francisco-font/