Fira (typeface) explained

Fira Sans
Style:Sans-serif
Classifications:Humanist
Releasedate:2013
Based On:FF Meta
Creator:Erik Spiekermann
Ralph du Carrois
Foundry:bBox Type GmbH
License:SIL Open Font License
Latest Release Version:4.3
Cyrillic:yes
Greek:yes
Latin:yes

Fira Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Erik Spiekermann, Ralph du Carrois, Anja Meiners, Botio Nikoltchev of Carrois Type Design and Patryk Adamczyk of Mozilla Corporation.[1] Originally commissioned by Telefónica and Mozilla Corporation as part of the joint effort during the development of Firefox OS. It is a slightly wider and calmer adaptation of Spiekermann's typeface Meta[2] [3] , which was used at Mozilla's brand typeface at the time but optimized for legibility on (small) screens. With the name Fira, Mozilla wanted to communicate the concepts of fire, light and joy but in a language agnostic way to signal the project's global nature. Fira was released in 2013 initially under the Apache License and later reissued under the SIL Open Font License.

In its initial 2013 release, Fira Sans was available in four weights with corresponding italics: light, regular, medium, and bold.In May 2014, the number of weights was increased to 16. In 2015, Mozilla added a condensed style.[4] The family has a large character set including text figures and small caps.

Fira Sans is the font of choice for the Government of New Zealand[5] and the Government of Iceland.[6]

Fira Mono

Fira Mono
Style:Monospaced
Releasedate:2013
Based On:FF Meta
Creator:Erik Spiekermann
Foundry:bBox Type GmbH
License:SIL Open Font License
Latest Release Version:3.206
Cyrillic:yes
Greek:yes
Latin:yes

Fira Sans is accompanied by a monospaced variant called Fira Mono, available in regular, medium, and bold.

Fira Code

Fira Code is an extension of the Fira Mono font containing a set of ligatures for common programming multi-character combinations. It is available in regular, medium, bold and light, and as a variable weight font.[7]

Fira Go

FiraGo
Style:Sans-serif
Classifications:Humanist
Creator:Erik Spiekermann
Commissioned By:Here Technologies
Foundry:bBox Type GmbH
Releasedate:March 2018
License:SIL Open Font License
Based On:Fira
Latest Release Version:1.001
Arabic:yes
Cyrillic:yes
Devangari:yes
Georgian:yes
Greek:yes
Hebrew:yes
Latin:yes
Thai:yes

In March 2018, a multilingual extension named FiraGo (stylised as FiraGO) was released. It has Arabic, Devanagari, Georgian, Hebrew and Thai letters in addition to Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets in the typeface. It was commissioned by Here Technologies. FiraGo was released as a separate product, and will be the main font family in the group. All future updates to Fira Sans will be based on FiraGo and as of 2018, all Fira families are issued by bBox Type, which is headed by Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners.[8]

Fira Math

Released in 2019, Fira Math is a sans-serif font with Unicode math support and is developed by Stone Zeng.[9]

References

  1. Web site: 870998 – [Style Guide] Type Guidelines for Firefox OS product page |publisher=Bugzilla.mozilla.org |access-date=2013-08-25].
  2. Erik Spiekermann: Type Is Visible Language, Beyond Tellerrand, Düsseldorf 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggQpDu63kk0
  3. Web site: Butterick. Matthew. Fira Sans: review. 14 November 2014. Typographica.
  4. Web site: Fira Sans Condensed. Font Squirrel. 29 February 2016.
  5. Web site: NZ Government: Typography. New Zealand Government. 18 October 2018.
  6. Web site: Stjórnarráð Íslands - Hönnunarstaðall. Government of Iceland. 22 January 2021.
  7. Web site: Fira Code — Variable Fonts. Variable Fonts.
  8. Web site: bBox Type.
  9. Web site: Zeng . Stone . Fira Math . August 5, 2022 . GitHub.

[10] [11] [12] [13]

External links