SOCISThis page contains the Workplace series of TrueType fonts. These are fonts which have been inspired by OS/2's built-in bitmap fonts, but are implemented as outline fonts.
Those interested in contributing to the development of these fonts should read the developer notes. The outline font editor I use for development is FontLab TypeTool (version 3). I have created FontLab-compatible codepage files (which can be used to generate cmap tables in the compiled font) for the OS/2 Extended Universal Glyph List. These can be downloaded here.
- Workplace Sans
-
![[Workplace Sans]](wpsu_top.png)
Workplace Sans is a light semi-condensed sans-serif font, inspired
by the OS/2 bitmap font "WarpSans". Intended primarily for use as a
user interface font, it has been designed to resemble WarpSans as
much as possible when displayed on-screen at 9pt/120dpi or
11pt/96dpi.Workplace Sans is currently available in both regular and bold versions.
Because Workplace Sans is hinted only very crudely, it looks best when anti-aliased under programs which are capable of doing so (such as OpenOffice, the Mozilla family, or applications which use the Innotek Font Engine).
Workplace Sans is not especially well hinted, and probably never will be, since I have neither the tools nor the skills to be able to implement full manual hinting. Consequently, characters may look somewhat irregular when viewed without antialiasing, or at certain point sizes.
Please note I am neither a trained typographer nor an experienced graphic artist. By professional standards, Workplace Sans is probably not particularly well-designed.
View additional examples:
Development work on Workplace Sans is done using TypeTool version 3; however, due to various issues with the autohinter, the release versions are currently being built with TypeTool version 2.
Supported Characters
Workplace Sans is a work in progress. The following table summarizes the character support of each version by Unicode Universal Character Set range:
UCS range Name Regular v0.4 Regular v0.7 Bold v0.3 0000 - 007F Basic Latin 95/95 95/95 95/95 0080 - 00FF Latin-1 Supplement 96/96 96/96 96/96 0100 - 017F Latin Extended-A 128/128 128/128 2/128 0180 - 024F Latin Extended-B 7/194 16/194 1/194 02B0 - 02FF Spacing Modifier Letters 17/79 19/79 10/79 0300 - 036F Combining Diacritical Marks 21/112 29/112 12/112 0370 - 03FF Greek 76/108 72/108 72/108 0400 - 04FF Cyrillic 98/248 97/248 94/248 0590 - 05FF Hebrew 34/86 31/86 2000 - 206F General Punctuation 40/106 39/106 14/106 2070 - 209F Superscripts and Subscripts 1/34 3/34 1/34 20A0 - 20CF Currency Symbols 4/22 4/22 2/22 2100 - 214F Letterlike Symbols 3/75 11/75 2/75 2190 - 21FF Arrows 8/112 8/112 7/112 2200 - 22FF Mathematical Operators 15/256 11/256 9/256 2300 - 23FF Miscellaneous Technical 5/220 5/220 4/220 2500 - 257F Box Drawing 40/128 40/128 40/128 2580 - 259F Block Elements 8/32 8/32 8/32 25A0 - 25FF Geometric Shapes 44/96 32/96 7/96 2600 - 26FF Miscellaneous Symbols 35/92 13/92 11/92 3000 - 303F CJK Symbols and Punctuation 31/64 20/64 1/64 3040 - 309F Hiragana 86/93 87/93 30A0 - 30FF Katakana 84/96 88/96 4E00 - 9FFF CJK Unified Ideographs 40/20924 FF00 - FFEF Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms 161/225 161/225 FFF0 - FFFF Specials 1/5 1/5 Note: Version 0.4 contains a few characters not supported by later versions, due to the subsequent redesign.
Background
I originally created Workplace Sans because I wanted something that closely resembled the OS/2 WarpSans font, but which could be used under other operating systems. (My original motivation was actually to be able to use Windows-based graphics programs to draw OS/2 user interface designs.) As a bitmap font cannot be antialiased, my assumption was that Workplace Sans would generally not be either.
In light of these goals, early versions put a great deal of effort into trying to force the glyphs to rasterize (in monochrome) as identically as possible to WarpSans at 9- and 11-point sizes, while maintaining a certain minimal level of internal consistency. With no direct control over hinting, I had instead to resort to pushing the glyph outlines themselves into sometimes-odd contortions. At the time, very little consideration went into making the actual glyph shapes attractive on their own merit.
Since that time, however, Workplace Sans has found itself adopted for use under OS/2 by a number of ported applications which use the FreeType library for rendering text. These applications cannot load OS/2 bitmap fonts (because FreeType cannot), and thus are unable to use WarpSans for their user interface; at the same time, however, it is generally deemed desirable to use a font which approximates the style and dimensions of WarpSans in order to maintain as much consistency as possible with the rest of the system. Significantly, though, the use of FreeType implies that text will be antialiased by default.
The upshot is that Workplace Sans is now much more likely than I originally envisioned to be used in an environment where it is antialiased by default; indeed, somewhat against my expectations, this appears to now be the font's primary use.
Consequently, I have recently engaged in a rethink of Workplace Sans's design principles. Specifically, I have decided to move away from my original obsession with exactly duplicating the appearance of WarpSans under binary rasterization, and am now concentrating instead on making the font more attractive when antialiased, including at larger sizes.
The "old" design philosophy reached its peak with version 0.4 of Workplace Sans, and version 0.1 of Workplace Sans Bold. I will continue to keep these version available here for people who may want them. However, version 0.6 and all later versions of Workplace Sans, and version 0.2 and all later versions of Workplace Sans Bold, will reflect the "new" design philosophy, and these versions will be the focus of development from now on.
Files
wpsu_ttf_07.zip The latest release (version 0.7) of Workplace Sans in TrueType format. wpsub_ttf_03.zip The latest release (version 0.3) of Workplace Sans Bold in TrueType format. wpsu_vfb_07.zip Workplace Sans source (version 0.7) in FontLab format, plus developer notes. wpsub_vfb_03.zip Workplace Sans Bold source (version 0.3) in FontLab format, plus developer notes. wpsu_ttf_04.zip Version 0.4 of Workplace Sans in TrueType format. wpsub_ttf_01.zip Version 0.1 of Workplace Sans Bold in TrueType format. Legal Notices
Workplace Sans and Workplace Sans Bold are © 2009 Alexander Taylor. All rights reserved.
Workplace Sans v0.6 and later, and Workplace Sans bold v0.2 and later are licensed under the Open Font License. (Earlier versions were public domain software.)
- Workplace Gothic
-
![[Workplace Gothic]](wpgoth_top.png)
Workplace Gothic is a light semi-condensed sans-serif font. Like
Workplace Sans, it is designed for user interfaces, and is loosely
inspired by the WarpSans font. However, whereas the main focus of
Workplace Sans is on utility, Workplace Gothic puts more emphasis
on aesthetics.Workplace Gothic is currently available in both regular and bold versions.
Workplace Gothic came about as a result of some experiments on varying the design of Workplace Sans. Compared to the latter, it has rounder, more natural shapes, as well as slightly thicker strokes. This gives it a softer, more relaxed appearance. I have also allowed myself a bit more freedom to diverge from the WarpSans glyph shapes in the name of consistency (for instance, the bold versions of the lowercase 'l' and 't' have tails, in keeping with the non-bold versions).
As with Workplace Sans, Workplace Gothic has only very basic hinting, and therefore looks best when anti-aliased using FreeType or the equivalent.
View additional examples:
Workplace Gothic is created using FontLab TypeTool.
Supported Characters
The following table summarizes the character support of the latest versions of Workplace Gothic and Workplace Gothic Bold, according to Unicode Universal Character Set range:
UCS range Name Regular Bold 0000 - 007F Basic Latin 95/95 95/95 0080 - 00FF Latin-1 Supplement 96/96 5/96 0100 - 017F Latin Extended-A 1/128 0180 - 024F Latin Extended-B 1/194 02B0 - 02FF Spacing Modifier Letters 3/79 1/79 0300 - 036F Combining Diacritical Marks 5/112 1/112 2000 - 206F General Punctuation 5/106 2/106 20A0 - 20CF Currency Symbols 1/22 2190 - 21FF Arrows 7/112 1/112 2200 - 22FF Mathematical Operators 1/256 2580 - 259F Block Elements 5/32 25A0 - 25FF Geometric Shapes 7/96 5/96 2600 - 26FF Miscellaneous Symbols 11/92 11/92 FFF0 - FFFF Specials 1/5 Files
wpgoth_ttf_01.zip The latest release (version 0.1) of Workplace Gothic in TrueType format. wpgothb_ttf_01.zip The latest release (version 0.1) of Workplace Gothic Bold in TrueType format. wpgoth_vfb_01.zip Workplace Gothic source (version 0.1) in FontLab format. wpgothb_vfb_01.zip Workplace Gothic Bold source (version 0.1) in FontLab format. Legal Notices
Workplace Gothic and Workplace Gothic Bold are © 2009 Alexander Taylor. All rights reserved.
Licensed under the Open Font License.
