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Fira (typeface)

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Fira
CategorySans-serif
ClassificationHumanist
Designer(s)Erik Spiekermann
Ralph du Carrois
FoundrybBox Type GmbH
Date released2013
LicenseSIL Open Font License
Design based onFF Meta
Latest release version4.3

Fira Sans (initially called Feura Sans) is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Erik Spiekermann, Ralph du Carrois, Anja Meiners and Botio Nikoltchev of Carrois Type Design.[1][2][3][4] It is a slightly wider and calmer adaptation of Spiekermann's typeface Meta, optimized for legibility on (small) screens. Fira Sans was originally commissioned by Telefónica (which is mentioned in the credits) for an operating system and then adopted by the Mozilla Foundation for the Firefox OS, fitting in with their brand typeface Meta.[5][6] The typeface was initially called Feura, which according to Spiekermann was dropped because English pronunciations resemble the German word Führer.[7][8][9] Fira was released in 2013 initially under the Apache License and later reissued under the SIL Open Font License.

In its initial 2013 release, Fira Sans was available in four weights with corresponding italics: light, regular, medium, and bold. In May 2014, the number of weights was increased to 16.[10] In 2015, Mozilla added a condensed style.[11][12] The family has a large character set including text figures and small caps.

Fira Sans is the font of choice for the New Zealand Government.[13]

Fira Mono

Fira Mono
CategoryMonospaced
Designer(s)Erik Spiekermann
FoundrybBox Type GmbH
Date released2013
LicenseSIL Open Font License
Design based onFF Meta
Latest release version3.206

Fira Sans is accompanied by a monospaced variant called Fira Mono, available in regular, medium, and bold.

Fira Code

Fira Code is an extension of the Fira Mono font containing a set of ligatures for common programming multi-character combinations. It's available in regular, medium, bold and light.

Fira Go

FiraGo
CategorySans-serif
ClassificationHumanist
Designer(s)Erik Spiekermann
Commissioned byHere Technologies
FoundrybBox Type GmbH
Date releasedMarch 2018
LicenseSIL Open Font License
Design based onFira
Latest release version1.000

In March 2018, a multilingual extension named FiraGo (stylised as FiraGO) was released. It has Arabic, Devanagari, Georgian, Hebrew and Thai letters in addition to Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets in the typeface. It was commissioned by Here Technologies. FiraGo was released as a separate product, and will be the main font family in the group. All future updates to Fira Sans will be based on FiraGo.[citation needed]

As of 2018, all Fira families are issued by bBox Type, which is headed by Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ "870998 – [Style Guide] Type Guidelines for Firefox OS product page". Bugzilla.mozilla.org. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
  2. ^ Erik Spiekermann, “Fira specimen uploaded”, Spiekerblog, 30 July 2013
  3. ^ “Fira Sans”, Typografie.info, 20 July 2013
  4. ^ Patryk Adamczyk, “Introducing Feura Sans, a more legible font for mobile”, Mozilla UX Quarterly, Q2 2013 (PDF Archived 2013-06-12 at the Wayback Machine)
  5. ^ Erik Spiekermann: Type Is Visible Language, Beyond Tellerrand, Düsseldorf 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggQpDu63kk0
  6. ^ Butterick, Matthew. "Fira Sans: review". Typographica. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  7. ^ Erik Spiekermann talking at the Forward Festival 2020 in Vienna, video recording: https://www.dezeen.com/2020/04/17/erik-spiekermann-forward-festival-virtual-design-festival-video/
  8. ^ https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=870998#c11
  9. ^ https://twitter.com/espiekermann/status/359353798663221248
  10. ^ “Try Out Fira Sans: a Free, Open Source Typeface Commissioned by Mozilla”, Do not Lick, 23 May 2014
  11. ^ "Mozilla Fira Sans". Github. Mozilla. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  12. ^ "Fira Sans Condensed". Font Squirrel. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  13. ^ "NZ Government: Typography". New Zealand Government. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
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