GNOME to switch from the Cantarell font
Some great news from Allan Day, via Felix on the GNOME team:
GNOME changed its UI and monospace fonts this week, in a long anticipated change that is planned for GNOME 48. The new fonts are called Adwaita Sans and Adwaita Mono. Adwaita Sans is a modified version of Inter, and replaces Cantarell as the UI font.
Hallelujah!
I don’t use GNOME that often, but I always thought Cantarell looked so out of place on the desktop. It was difficult to read in smaller sizes, it had inconsistent vertical spacing and kerning, and the shapes of letters were deeply unappealing in a way that grates the more you see it plastered everywhere.
OMG Ubuntu:
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GNOME Introduces New UI & Monospace Adwaita Fonts - OMG! Ubuntu
Should you feel a sense of deja vu here it’s because GNOME trialled a font switch last year, during development of GNOME 47. Back then, it replaced its home-grown Cantarell font with the popular open-source sans Inter font (trivia: used by Zorin OS).
The change was reverted prior to the GNOME 47 due to various UI quirks, coverage issues, and compatibility (thus underlying the importance of testing things out prior to making wholesale changes).
Now, GNOME is trying again ahead of GNOME 48 —with a different font.
Well, a semi-different font.