Cantarell (typeface)

In 2009 the Cantarell fonts were initially designed by Dave Crossland during his studies of typeface design at the University of Reading.{{cite web|title=Work from the MA typeface design class of 2009|url=http://typefacedesign.net/typefaces/year/2009/|publisher=typefacedesign.org|access-date=2011-08-17|archive-date=2014-07-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140708043535/http://typefacedesign.net/typefaces/year/2009/|url-status=dead}} In 2010, the fonts were chosen by GNOME for use in its 3.0 release, and the font sources were moved to GNOME's Git repository.{{cite web|title=Cantarell, a Humanist sans-serif font family|url=https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/cantarell-fonts/|publisher=GNOME GIT source code repository|access-date=2020-01-27}} The fonts are maintained there, allowing contributions from a variety of designers including Jakub Steiner and Pooja Saxena. In 2013 Pooja Saxena joined the GNOME foundation's “Outreach Programme for Women” internship,{{cite web|title=OutReachProgramForWomen - GNOME Wiki!|url= https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen|publisher=GNOME.org|access-date=2013-11-10}} and was tasked with improving the design and language support.{{cite web|last=Saxena|first=Pooja|title=Becoming an OPW intern|url=https://dispatchesfromopw.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/becoming-an-opw-intern/|publisher=Pooja Saxena|date=2013-05-29|access-date=2013-11-10}} In 2014 Pooja was given financial support by Google Fonts to extend the design to Devanagari, but due to unavoidable vertical metrics adjustments the family was published with a new name, Cambay.{{cite web|last=Saxena|first=Pooja|title=Google Fonts Cambay|url=https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Cambay|publisher=Google Fonts|access-date=2016-01-19}} Another Cantarell-derived font is Petra Sans.{{cn|date=February 2024}}

In GNOME 3.28 (March 2018), the font was re-designed with two additional weights, light and extra bold.{{cite web|url=https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.28/|title=GNOME 3.28 Release Notes|website=help.gnome.org|access-date=2018-03-15}}

Cantarell initially received both criticism and support from the free software community. It was argued that GNOME's use of Cantarell reduced legibility in desktop applications, it was not kerned and has deformed glyphs.{{cite web|last=Fortin Tam|first=Jean-François|title=On Cantarell|url=https://fortintam.com/blog/on-cantarell/|publisher=fortintam.com|date=2011-04-13|access-date=2020-01-27}} Other users enjoyed the design, calling it “stylish and beautiful, but most importantly, crisp and easy to read.”{{cite web|last=Martin|first=Chema|title=Cantarell, a new favorite font of mine|url=http://cristalinux.blogspot.com/2011/10/cantarell-new-favorite-font-of-mine.html|publisher=Chema Martin|date=2011-10-25|access-date=2013-11-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131111034435/http://cristalinux.blogspot.com/2011/10/cantarell-new-favorite-font-of-mine.html|archive-date=2013-11-11|url-status=dead}} The initial release notes stated that it was designed for legibility on screens.{{cite web|last=Crossland |first=David |title=Cantarell |url=http://abattis.org/cantarell/ |publisher=Dave Crossland |date=2011-07-23 |access-date=2016-01-19 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723232436/http://abattis.org/cantarell/ |archive-date=July 23, 2011}}

GNOME's choice was also criticized since Cantarell only supports some Latin languages, far fewer than the previously used DejaVu fonts.{{cite web|title=The Grumpy Editor's GNOME 3 experience|url=https://lwn.net/Articles/433698/|publisher=LWN.net|access-date=2011-08-17}} When the fonts were first published, Crossland invited others to extend the language support and this finally began in 2013 when Saxena began applying the design to the Cyrillic script.

Cantarell does not include native italics or oblique glyphs.{{Cite web|url=https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/cantarell-fonts/issues/16|title = Generated obliques have no hinting applied to them (#16) · Issues · GNOME / Cantarell-fonts| date=2 January 2020 }}

• Adwaita (design language) – design language of GNOME, which uses Cantarell as its default typeface
• Open-source Unicode typefaces
• Droid (typeface), the default fonts for first versions of Android
• Noto fonts, the default fonts for newer versions of Android
• Open Sans, another font based on Droid Sans
• Roboto, the default fonts for newer versions of Android
• IBM Plex, free and open-source fonts from IBM
• National Fonts, free and open-source Thai fonts
• PT Fonts, free and open-source fonts from Russia
• STIX Fonts project, typefaces intended to serve the scientific and engineering community

{{Reflist}}

• [https://cantarell.gnome.org Homepage cantarell.gnome.org] (variable font)
• [https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/cantarell-fonts Cantarell source code]
• [https://github.com/cssobral2013/Petra-Sans Petra Sans source code]
• [https://google.com/fonts/specimen/Cambay Google Fonts Cambay]
• [https://google.com/fonts/specimen/Cantarell Google Fonts Cantarell]
• [https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/cambay Font Library Cambay]
• [https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/cantarell-v16 Font Library Cantarell]
• [https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/petra-sans Font Library Petra Sans]

{{free and open-source typography}}{{GNOME}}

category:GNOME

category:humanist sans-serif typefaces

category:open-source typefaces

category:typefaces and fonts introduced in 2009