SimSun; Common; EB Garamond

It’s fonts all the way down, today, with backstories for three very different typfaces.

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TL;DR

(This is an LLM/GPT-generated summary of today’s Drop using MLX LLM in Ollama server compatibility mode, SmollM3-3B-8bit, and a custom prompt.)

• SimSun, the default Simplified Chinese font on Windows, was created in 2001 to handle over 20,000 characters, though its boxy design makes Latin letters look misaligned. It remains ubiquitous due to its free, pre-installed status and functional design, becoming a cultural icon despite Western designers’ mixed reactions. For deeper insights, see Nurbek Fayziev’s blog.
• Common.otf, a “meta-hybrid” font mixing Akzidenz Grotesk, Helvetica, Univers, and Arial, explores how our brains process subtle font differences. It challenges copyright in digital design by reusing proprietary typefaces, sparking debates about shared visual culture versus private ownership. Learn more at Ian Mitchell’s project.
• EB Garamond, inspired by Claude Garamond’s 16th-century roman and italic styles, aims to preserve his legacy for modern use. Collaboratively developed with historical references and ongoing improvements, it bridges typographic tradition and contemporary collaboration. Explore the project at the blog and GitHub.

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SimSun

If you’ve ever bought something cheap from China and flipped through the manual, you’ve probably seen SimSun. It’s the font that appears on everything from product packaging to bargain websites, and there’s actually a reason why.

SimSun is basically the “Times New Roman” of Chinese text. Created in 2001 by Beijing ZhongYi Electronics Co. Ltd., it became the default font for Simplified Chinese on Windows computers. But unlike most fonts you know, SimSun had to solve a massive problem: Chinese requires over 20,000 different characters, making font files huge and slow to load.

The font treats every character like it fits in the same square box, which works perfectly for Chinese characters but makes Latin letters look oddly spaced. You might notice apostrophes with weird gaps or English text that just feels “off” when mixed with Chinese. That’s SimSun doing its best with letters it wasn’t really designed for.

So why is SimSun still everywhere? Simple: it works, it’s free, and it’s already installed on millions of [Windows] computers. For manufacturers cranking out cheap products or building quick websites, font aesthetics take a backseat to “does it display the text?” SimSun always says yes.

What’s interesting is how this utilitarian font has accidentally become iconic. Western designers often find it unappealing, but its sheer ubiquity has given it a weird charm. Some modern tech companies are even drawing inspiration from SimSun’s geometric, boxy aesthetic for that “digital nostalgia” vibe.

While SimSun is a proper font, it’s also digital infrastructure that quietly shapes how billions of people read Chinese text every day. Its story reveals how technical constraints and cultural momentum can create visual standards that stick around long after better alternatives exist.

Want to dive deeper into SimSun’s fascinating history and cultural impact? Check out the full story at Nurbek Fayziev’s blog.

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Common

Ian Mitchell, who teaches graphic design at Liverpool School of Art and Design, has created something pretty fascinating with typography. His project centers around a typeface called Common.otf that plays with our expectations about fonts and ownership in pretty clever ways.

Common.otf is what Mitchell calls a “meta-hybrid” typeface, and it works by literally copying letter shapes from four of the most famous modern fonts: Akzidenz Grotesk, Helvetica, Univers, and Arial. When you type with Common.otf, the font randomly mixes and matches these different letter shapes as you write. So your text subtly shifts between these familiar typefaces, creating an interesting flickering effect that most people wouldn’t consciously notice but might somehow feel.

This isn’t just a design experiment for its own sake. Mitchell is exploring some important questions about typography and culture. First, he’s investigating how our eyes and noggins process these tiny differences between similar-looking fonts. Do we actually notice when letters change slightly? How does mixing these fonts affect readability or the overall feeling of a text?

From a teaching perspective, Common.otf becomes this brilliant tool for helping design students understand the nuances between typefaces that might otherwise look identical to untrained eyes. It makes visible the subtle differences that typography experts spend years learning to see.

But perhaps most provocatively, the project raises questions about ownership and copyright in digital design. Since Common.otf is built from pieces of proprietary typefaces, it exists in this legal gray area that challenges our ideas about what belongs to whom in the digital world. Mitchell is essentially asking: when fonts become so ubiquitous that they shape how we see text everywhere, at what point do they become part of our shared visual culture rather than private property?

The project connects to broader conversations about the “commons” in design and culture. Just as public spaces need collective care and protection, design resources and knowledge might benefit from more collaborative approaches rather than strict private ownership. Mitchell’s work suggests that typography, which shapes so much of our daily visual experience, deserves this kind of critical examination.

If you are keen to explore these ideas further or see Common.otf in action, you can learn more about the project and Mitchell’s research. The site serves as both showcase and case study for these questions about shared visual culture, design education, and the boundaries of creative ownership in our digital age.

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EB Garamond

Back in the 1500s, a talented type designer named Claude Garamond created letterforms that essentially became the standard for readable, beautiful text. His work was so influential that centuries later, we’re still trying to capture that same timeless elegance. EB Garamond (GH) does exactly that, bringing Garamond’s original vision into modern typography.

The project gets its name from “Egenolff-Berner Garamond,” honoring the historical print shops that preserved these letterforms. The main inspiration comes from a 1592 specimen book by Conrad Berner that showed off Garamond’s roman letters alongside italics by Robert Granjon. Think of it as a 400-year-old catalog that modern designers used as their blueprint.

Georg Mayr-Duffner started this project in 2011 with a simple goal: make a truly authentic Garamond available to everyone, not just those who can afford expensive commercial fonts. Later, Google commissioned Octavio Pardo to expand the project, adding multiple weights and improving the italic styles. The result is a font family that works beautifully whether you’re designing a wedding invitation, writing a thesis, or building a website.

What’s remarkable is how this project bridges centuries of typographic tradition with modern collaborative development. Contributors from around the world have helped refine everything from letterforms to language support, creating what many consider the definitive digital Garamond.

Today, EB Garamond continues to evolve, with ongoing improvements for mathematical typesetting, web use, and multilingual publishing. It proves that the most enduring designs transcend their original time and medium, finding new life through community effort and shared knowledge.

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FIN

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