Did Apple create an entirely new typeface for the Apple Watch? Did they customize something existing? To me it looks like it was inspired by DIN and given a very tall x-height, but I see influence from Roboto in there as well.
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3Should have been Comic Sans.– ScottSep 9, 2014 at 19:25
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@Scott Apple Watch "Children" Edition? Not too late!– BrendanSep 9, 2014 at 19:27
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The text looks pretty close to Helvetica. The numerals aren't, though.– DA01Sep 9, 2014 at 19:33
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@DA01 Nah, I was watching the keynote and right away I noticed that the 'e' and 'c' glyphs didn't curve all the way around like Helvetica does. The 'R' and 'G' are very different too.– BrendanSep 9, 2014 at 19:45
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2 Answers
According to the Apple Watch HIGs, it's a new font called San Francisco, and it comes in two flavors:
Choose the San Francisco Text font for text that is 19 points or smaller. Choose the San Francisco Display font for text that is 20 points or larger.
Jon Gruber notes that it's not the first San Francisco font to appear on an Apple device, though this iteration is certainly a lot more practical!
Whatever it is, it’s grotesque.
Seriously though, DIN does look close but for its square tittles and punctuation marks and not getting the 9’s right.
I fancy Aktiv Grotesk for a closer match on the numbers, but it’s just not ‘square’ enough and again lacks round tittles, etc.
UPDATE: Apple did indeed create their own typeface for the font: http://www.apple.com/watch/technology/#familiar
We even developed a new typeface to maximize legibility.
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Good catch on the website reference. I'll mark this as accepted until we get more details (I'd love to know about its name, the design process, etc.).– BrendanSep 11, 2014 at 18:51