Talk:San Francisco (sans-serif typeface)

Requested move 5 December 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus for move. (non-admin closure). sst✈^(discuss) 05:41, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

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San Francisco (2014 typeface) → San Francisco (2015 typeface) – It was introduced in 2015 not 2014, per "Introducing a new system font!". Apple.com. Apple Inc. Retrieved 4 December 2015. —2002:43F4:3ABB:1234:6599:A678:D07E:B60A (talk) 00:19, 5 December 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 12:29, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

• It was released to developers in November 2014, and that's when this article was started. Check the history. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:33, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Apple did not announce it or start using it until 2015— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2002:43f4:3abb:1234:6599:a678:d07e:b60a (talk • contribs) 15:15, 5 December 2015
    • I'd have to install Safari on my Windows machine to watch that video, but are you saying it wasn't announced until WWDC 2015 and was "top secret" before June, 2015? The history of this article belies that. It seems to me that this typeface was introduced as a part of WatchKit, not the Apple Watch itself, which was released on April 24, 2015. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:54, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
      • OK, but don't you think we should use the year that it was released to the public? 2002:43F4:3ABB:1234:6599:A678:D07E:B60A (talk) 16:51, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
        • I'm not sure what our conventions are in this regard, and would have to research it. Perhaps others will weigh in. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:02, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
          • I think it would make sense though. 2002:43F4:3ABB:1234:6599:A678:D07E:B60A (talk) 18:31, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
            • Since some people had the typeface in 2014 and there was already a Wikipedia article about it at that time (so the existence of it was obviously not a secret), then to me it seems like it is clearly a 2014 typeface. Note that the "2014" is not part of the name of the typeface – it is just something added in a parenthetical phrase for Wikipedia disambiguation purposes. —BarrelProof (talk) 21:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
              • Why don't we move it and put the developer release in the infobox. It was not publicly released until 2015 and showing the public release year and not the developer release year would make things less confusing. 2002:43F4:3ABB:1234:E075:3F94:F0B:13CD (talk) 22:12, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
                • The second sentence of the article now says "It was first introduced to developers in 2014." With that included, I think there should be no confusion about why the parenthetical disambiguation phrase refers to it as a 2014 typeface. The article also references an article published in 2014 entitled "Apple Releases Its Most Important Typeface In 20 Years". The article doesn't say "Apple plans to release it next year" – it announces that Apple has already released it, and says "You can download it now". —BarrelProof (talk) 23:30, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
                  • You are obviously confused because it was publicly released in 2015 and the developer release does not matter, (at least in the title). Look at this page. The copyright date at the bottom says 2015. 2002:43F4:3ABB:1234:7C2F:E101:B5A2:1ECF (talk) 00:01, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

References

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Title change

Now that San Francisco has a mono-spaced variant and considering the older discussion above, I am not sure that '2014 typeface' is an appropriate title anymore. It would make more sense to call it a typeface family, if that term exists. Any suggestions? Maybe we could merge this with San Francisco (1984 typeface) and simply call it San Francisco (typefaces).–Tot (talk) 15:54, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

@BarrelProof and Wbm1058:, any thoughts?–Totie (talk) 15:56, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Per the lead sentence of typeface, "In typography, a typeface (also known as font family) is a set of one or more fonts each composed of glyphs that share common design features."

Introducing the New System Fonts refers to "the San Francisco family of fonts". As these are "system fonts", and the 1984 "ransom note effect" typeface seems like something of a joke, and not a serious typeface, I think there's an argument for making the 2014 version the primary topic for San Francisco typeface (natural disambiguation).

Wikipedia:Partially disambiguated page names discusses this somewhat controversial aspect of disambiguation, but shows that there are some partially disambiguated article titles.

So there is some precedent for either:

• moving San Francisco (2014 typeface) → San Francisco (typeface), and putting a hatnote to San Francisco (1984 typeface) on San Francisco (typeface)
• redirecting San Francisco (typeface) to San Francisco (2014 typeface), and putting a hatnote to San Francisco (1984 typeface) on San Francisco (2014 typeface)

Hmm, I see that Windows has a System (typeface), but system typeface is a red link.

Typography of Apple Inc. § Products (system fonts) overviews Apple's system fonts. It says that the Apple Watch version has since been renamed "SF Compact". The macOS and iOS version, known as "SF UI", is a modified version of San Francisco that is wider than its Apple Watch counterpart.

Typeface family redirects to font. I suppose then that "SF Compact", "SF UI", and other variants are fonts and not typefaces. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:52, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Do we actually have a source for the claim that SF Mono is part of the same typeface? Also from typeface: "ITC Garamond is a different typeface from 'Adobe Garamond' or 'Monotype Garamond.'" Even though the fonts look very much alike (hence why all call themselves Garamond), they are not considered the same typeface. Reading it like that, "SF", "SF Compact" and "SF Mono" are each a typeface. They undoubtedly share some common design characteristics, but they are not one typeface. SF Compact Display Bold is still different from SF Mono Bold; different fonts, different typefaces. We kind of mask this my using the term 'variant', but is this an actual typographic term? Typeface mentions "stylistic variant", but it uses the term loosely to refer to italics, boldface, display, condensed, etc. SF Compact is also not strictly a condensed version of SF either, as SF itself has condensed fonts too. To put it differently, I think we are looking at three different typefaces here that Apple calls collectively "San Francisco". If that is true, then we should rename the article accordingly. Hence, why I suggested to incorporate the old San Francisco font, if we are going for San Francisco (typefaces) (which in my opinion is the most accurate term). I don’t agree with the natural disambiguation of San Francisco typeface.–Totie (talk) 18:55, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Just to add: Garamond uses the description "group [of] typefaces". I think this is what I would call San Francisco: a group of typefaces, consisting of SF, SF Compact and SF Mono.–Totie (talk) 19:03, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

One more point: on my system, SF, SF Compact and SF Mono are grouped separately in font pickers and Font Book and they all have their own fonts (display/text, regular/italic/bold, etc). Apple does not use the name San Francisco anywhere.–Totie (talk) 19:07, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on this, so I have only a fuzzy idea of the difference between fonts and typefaces, and how you distinguish them. I don't own any Apple products, so can't do any original research like you can.

I strongly disagree with merging the 1984 "ransom note" typeface with the modern "San Francisco" typefaces. None of the current variants remotely look like they could be used for writing ransom notes, correct?

So if San Francisco (2014 typeface) is the former name of SF Compact, then we should move this article to that title. Disambiguation of SF Compact is not necessary. wbm1058 (talk) 19:23, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I want something comprehensive. SF Compact does not appeal to me for that reason and for several others: (2) there is no source for the claim that the other SF typefaces are derived from SF Compact, that it was released to the public earlier is no proof; (3) San Francisco is not the former name of the typeface. Apple uses them both; (4) I hardly ever see "SF" being mentioned anywhere as opposed to "San Francisco".

San Francisco (typefaces) would simply fit: (a) we keep the dominant name, (b) we are typographically accurate and (c) we avoid using the year as the disambiguation, given that the typefaces were released in a timespan of three years. I am also not persuaded by your opposition to include the "ransom note" font here. If we consider "San Francisco" as a name, a brand name, for some of Apple's typefaces, then why not give the ransom note an honourable mention in a sub-section? At this point, San Francisco (1984 typeface) is a stub anyway. I think that the disambiguation with the year restricts the options for a good disambiguation for this topic.–Totie (talk) 20:00, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

About Typeface Families does support the concept of a typeface family. I just reverted a double-redirect-fixing bot, as we do have an article about typeface. Although that article doesn't define what a typeface family is, it does discuss the concept of a typeface superfamily (that's a redirect I just created).

We have a Category:Unified serif and sans-serif typeface families, though most of its members define themselves as typefaces, not as typeface families.

I guess what you're looking for is to redefine the scope of this article to something like San Francisco (typeface superfamily). I maintain my position that San Francisco (1984 typeface) is not a member of this superfamily. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:36, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Re "there is no source for the claim that the other SF typefaces are derived from SF Compact". If that's true, then there is no basis for the claim that the "SF" typefaces are a family or superfamily. wbm1058 (talk) 20:47, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm a bit unclear on what you're trying to do here, but it seems like you want a "broad concept article" on all typefaces named "San Francisco" or "SF". In other words, the only thing these typefaces have in common is their name. So if next year Microsoft introduced a new "San Francisco" typeface which looked nothing like the Apple typefaces, we would still include it in the article, because it was named "San Francisco". wbm1058 (talk) 21:00, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

My point was that there is no evidence that "SF" and "SF Mono" in particular are descendants of "SF Compact". That does not mean that "San Francisco" could not be considered a 'typeface family', it has nothing to do with that. I am also not seeking to redefine to scope to 'superfamily', rather a redefinition to the "San Francisco" name that is associated with all these Apple fonts. That way it could certainly include the ransom-note font. I favour this scope, because it avoids the problem that Apple uses "San Francisco" and "SF" seemingly interchangeably, even though the font files themselves are only called "SF". In any case, the problem is that we don't have an authoritative source to distinguish between "typeface", "typefaces" and "typeface family" here. I still believe though that the distinctions between the three typefaces/variants matches the Garamond dichotomy I mentioned above. The fonts can clearly be separated into three groups, hence the different names and the grouping in font pickers. I find that persuasive enough to consider "San Francisco" (as opposed to "SF") a group of typefaces or 'typeface family'. We can avoid the terminology simply by saying that "San Francisco" is a group of Apple typefaces and call the article San Francisco (typefaces). This would give ample scope to include the ransom-note font and avoid having to undertake an etymological discussion about 'typeface family'. The commonality is that they are all Apple typefaces and this is certainly enough for the title disambiguation. We don't need to restrict the scope to 1984 typeface and 2014 typeface when they can easily fall under "typefaces". That is the only necessary disambiguation here. If Microsoft would introduce a font with the same name, we could still disambiguate with San Francisco (Apple typefaces) (mutatis mutandis). I have asked for input at WP:TYP.–Totie (talk) 21:34, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

• Hello all. I think we should move this article "San Francisco (typeface)", since it's by far the best known typeface of this name - the ransom-note typeface on 1984 Macs is pretty obscure. I think it's reasonable to think of "San Francisco" a large family with coherent design across different structures (body text weights, display, monospace). The fact that Apple shortens it to "SF" for convenience doesn't make "SF Mono" a totally separate font. Blythwood (talk) 16:57, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I am not saying that the "SF" nomenclature is the only reason for considering them separate typefaces, but I think it reinforces my view. We had a wee discussion about this above and it is not clear to me how we should qualify them in the first place. A "large family with coherent design across different structures" is exactly why I believe that "typeface" does not cut it. Garamond considers "Adobe Garamond" and "ITC Garamond" different typefaces, even though they have a nearly identical design. It uses the definition "group of typefaces" instead. Arial is also interesting, because its typeface is a sans-serif. However, the "extended Arial type family includes more styles: [...] Monospaced". This suggests that the monospaced variant is something different from the "typeface" and part of a larger type family. I think that this distinction applies here, too. San Francisco (typeface) is not an acceptable solution for me, because we cannot ignore the 1984 typeface.–Totie (talk) 17:57, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I don’t know how relevant technical properties are considered to be in the context of naming typeface articles, but another way of disambiguating these two occurs to me: the 1984 version was a raster font (mainly for use on-screen and with early inkjet printers), never apparently developed (by Apple at least) into a vector font. What if that one were moved to San Francisco (bitmap font) or something to that effect, allowing us to drop the “2014” in this one? Another basis for distinguishing them might be that the older one falls into a decorative / display / fanciful classification, while the newer is a utilitarian text family.—Odysseus1479 01:23, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Those are also interesting distinctions. However, I do not think that we should mix "typeface" (and I still think that the singular is a misnomer here) and "bitmap font"; that would not be a good disambiguation to me. We should have something that properly separates the two, without using an inclusive term for one that technically covers both. I also fear that the disambiguation could become too technical. What is your opinion on my suggestion to move everything into San Francisco (typefaces)? I still believe that this is the best option, as it avoids the typefaces/typeface/variants dichotomy. All typefaces have one common element: they all belong to Apple. Why not use this fact? As it currently stands, San Francisco (1984 typeface) is a stub. There is ample scope to expand this article here and cover each "typeface" (i.e. SF, SF Compact, SF Mono) separately. I think we can incorporate the old font somewhere as well.–Totie (talk) 14:10, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

What about: San Francisco (effect typeface) and San Francisco (sans-serif typefaces) or San Francisco (Roman typefaces)? All terms can be found in typeface. The new SF typefaces are all sans-serifs, I believe, or at least "Roman". “SF Mono" seems to be a mixture of sans-serif and slab-serif (e.g. i and j), but I think we can overlook that, given that its overall style is clearly sans-serif.–Totie (talk) 14:25, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Any thoughts on my last proposal? I really would like to move the discussion forward and find a consensus.–Totie (talk) 13:27, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Unprotect the main article (San Francisco (sans-serif typeface)

Can you please unprotect the article, I will not make any disruptive edits please. Please I do not want to wait 3 months, decrease the semiprotection time to 22 May, once the 24.50.204.51 range of IP Addresses are unblocked. 2600:387:9:3:0:0:0:BE (talk) 23:15, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

To request a reduction in protection please see WP:RFPP. If you would like to request an edit please use the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:09, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Isn't the typeface geometric?

San Francisco definitely has a geometric design to it, such as G. Shouldn't that be part of the categorisation? Inferno986return (talk) 18:05, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Numerals Apple Watch face has many more variants. Should we list them?

Variants are listed as Rail, Stencil, Prisma, Regular, Dotted, Rounded, and Chiseled. Regular is just regular San Francisco, but the other ones are definitely different styles of San Francisco. Should we list these too?

Evieliam (talk) 01:48, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

SF Pro appears to have replaced SF UI?

SF Pro appears to have replaced SF UI, but it's not mentioned anywhere on page. See: https://www.designernews.co/stories/84408-ios-11-silently-introduces-sf-pro-with-almost-1000-new-glyphs-and-support-for-more-languages- and http://pixels.thetangible.in/post/162012900228/about-the-new-sf-pro-font Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker (talk) 23:14, 30 March 2018 (UTC)