Public Sans – A strong, neutral typeface

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Origins and context

  • Public Sans is described as a U.S. Web Design System / 18F project from late Obama-era, predating recent Calibri-vs-Times New Roman controversies.
  • It’s open source and part of a broader design library intended for government digital services.

Overall reception

  • Many find it pleasant, readable, and “nicer than a lot of web fonts,” with at least one person preferring it over Roboto after direct comparison.
  • Others think it feels like a toned‑down or “neutered” Franklin/Libre Franklin, or “very close” to IBM Plex or Helvetica, questioning whether it adds much.

Comparisons to other typefaces

  • Compared frequently to Roboto Sans: both are body fonts; Public Sans is said to be slightly wider and less condensed, possibly aiding readability at smaller sizes.
  • Mentioned peers or alternatives include Libre Franklin, IBM Plex (especially Plex Sans/Mono), Inter, Atkinson Hyperlegible Next, Readex Pro, Plus Jakarta Sans, and various classic serifs (Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, Crimson Pro, Century Schoolbook).
  • Some see its similarity to ubiquitous UI fonts (Inter, Aptos, Helvetica-like designs) as a strength; others see “yet another generic sans.”

Legibility, glyph design, and accessibility

  • Strong focus on glyph differentiation: complaints about indistinguishable capital I / lowercase l / numeral 1 and 0 vs O, and missing slashed zero.
  • Several participants favor fonts explicitly designed for disambiguation (IBM Plex, Inter with stylistic set ss02, Atkinson Hyperlegible Next).
  • One user with vision impairment finds Public Sans more readable than Roboto.
  • A shared list of visually ambiguous character pairs leads to practices like excluding certain letters from passwords.
  • A link labeled “Accessibility support” on the site returns 404, which is criticized.

Coverage and inclusivity

  • A major criticism: Public Sans appears to be Latin-only, lacking Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and even Greek, which is seen as a poor fit for a government font in a pluralistic, international context.
  • The site is also faulted for not providing a character table.

Government role, politics, and cost

  • Some question spending tax dollars on fonts; others respond that the work is a minor cost, largely an improvement of an existing font, and part of a shared design standard that benefits many agencies.
  • Broader political side-discussion about State Department mandates for Times New Roman and culture-war framing around “woke” typography.

Is font design “solved”?

  • One view: fonts are a solved problem and new ones don’t add value.
  • Counterview: this is like claiming design or art is solved; small differences matter for readability, aesthetics, and branding, even if many people can’t articulate why.