I've used Averia (Serif Libre, specifically) for at least a decade as my primary font for email, web pages in 'reader' mode, writing long-form text, etc. I find it extremely legible, and even calming.
Ironically, I've been a typographer for decades, both for print and online. Averia might seem an odd choice for someone intimately familiar with typographic theory/history and the vast catalog of possible fonts. But there's a certain pleasure and comfort in a font that is not trying to stand out or do anything particularly special.
This is an experiment from 2011 in which the author produced a font by averaging all the fonts on their system.
I'm reposting it here because I noticed that this looks a lot like the uncanny valley produced when an image AI tries to make text, which makes perfect sense: it's a statistical average of fonts.
Same. It looks like the print you see in old books. Very pleasing to the eye. The lower case 'm' sticks out to me though, the second hump is raised a little too high.
Interesting how modern designers think readable fonts (with serifs, so people can reliably distinguish between Al and AI, for example) are "uncanny" because they don't follow the latest trends in ultra-minimalist "design" and other fashions.
I’m surprised by how good it looks. This is really cool! I do feel like the Q and 4 characters need a little manual tweaking since the blur+threshold technique leaves some artifacts in the corners but those are such minor issues given how readable this font is overall. Love it.
> I call it Avería – which is a Spanish word related to the root of the word ‘average’. It actually means mechanical breakdown or damage. This seemed curiously fitting, and I was assured by a Spanish friend-of-a-friend that “Avería is an incredibly beautiful word regardless of its meaning”. So that's nice.
Very cool project, thank you for sharing! To me, it raises some interesting questions around attribution of sources in derived works, in the same way that AI training does.
Ironically, I've been a typographer for decades, both for print and online. Averia might seem an odd choice for someone intimately familiar with typographic theory/history and the vast catalog of possible fonts. But there's a certain pleasure and comfort in a font that is not trying to stand out or do anything particularly special.
I'm reposting it here because I noticed that this looks a lot like the uncanny valley produced when an image AI tries to make text, which makes perfect sense: it's a statistical average of fonts.
> I call it Avería – which is a Spanish word related to the root of the word ‘average’. It actually means mechanical breakdown or damage. This seemed curiously fitting, and I was assured by a Spanish friend-of-a-friend that “Avería is an incredibly beautiful word regardless of its meaning”. So that's nice.