The body copy on this site is now set in Standard and code is set in Courier, replacing Atlas Grotesk and Atlas Typewriter respectively.

Standard was released by Bryce Wilner in 2017, as a “translation and modification of Berthold’s 1896 version of Standard” (Standard being the name that Akzidenz-Grotesk was distributed under in England and the US). Wilner’s initial release was limited to book and book italic styles, but bold and bold italic styles have since been added.

I love the Atlas family, but as a developer there are cases where it is more practical to reach for fonts with more permissive licenses. The font files can be stored alongside the code in public Git repositories and p2p sites, used across multiple domains at no extra cost, and subset and modified without limitations; the list goes on. The commercially-licensed fonts were starting to feel like technical debt. Type choice isn’t a design-only concern.

I’m not sure whether I’ll stick with these specific typefaces, but that’s not really the point. Removing the dependency of paid-for fonts with restrictive licenses feels like the right step for a personal site of this nature, where the ability to experiment with design and technology without limitation is important, and arguably one of the motivating factors for creating such sites in the first place.