In 2013, the Mozilla Foundation commissioned Erik Spiekermann, a famous typographer, to work on a free, open source font family called Fira Sans (initially called Feura Sans).
Recently, the typeface was updated to version 3.1, getting 12 different weights (bringing the weights number to 16), all accompanied by italic styles, a huge character map and extensive language supports. There's also a monospaced variant: Fira Mono which includes 2 weights (regular and bold).
Recently, the typeface was updated to version 3.1, getting 12 different weights (bringing the weights number to 16), all accompanied by italic styles, a huge character map and extensive language supports. There's also a monospaced variant: Fira Mono which includes 2 weights (regular and bold).
Fira Sans is already used in Firefox OS and it will be used in the Firefox Preferences and Add-ons Manager, among other places.
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| Fira Mono (Regular) |
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| Fira Sans (Regular) |
"Complimenting Erik Spiekermann for Fira Sans, his latest typeface, seems a little like telling the Iron Chef that he really knows how to cook. Yeah. Duh. We might even ask whether Fira has an unfair advantage over other fonts from 2013, because it’s built on the adamantium-plated skeleton of FF Meta, which Spiekermann has had 25+ years to polish (see also FF Meta Serif and FF Unit)".
Try Fira Sans
If you want to give Fira Sans / Fira Mono a try, you can download it from dev.carrois.com (available in OTF/WOFF/EOT/TTF formats).
The typeface is also available on GitHub but, at the time I'm writing this article, it's an older version than the one available on dev.carrois.com and it doesn't all the new weights available with version 3.1
To install the fonts in Ubuntu, download the font archive, extract it in your home folder, then run the following commands:
- to install the fonts system-wide:
sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/fonts/truetype/FiraSans
sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/fonts/opentype/FiraSans
sudo cp ~/Fira*/WEB/*.ttf /usr/share/fonts/truetype/FiraSans/
sudo cp ~/Fira*/OTF/Fira* /usr/share/fonts/opentype/FiraSans/- to install Fira Sans / Fira Mono for your user only:
mkdir -p ~/.fonts/FiraSans
cp ~/Fira*/WEB/*.ttf ~/.fonts/FiraSans/
cp ~/Fira*/OTF/Fira* ~/.fonts/FiraSans/Then, update the font cache:
sudo fc-cache -f -vArch Linux users can install Fira Sans / Mono via AUR: otf-fira-mono | otf-fira-sans | ttf-fira-sans
Also see: Easily Download And Install Google Web Fonts In Ubuntu With TypeCatcher
via donotlick.com
