Airbus B612 Cockpit Font

What it actually looks like: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/B612

Funny how it's supposed to be designed to be legible. I read that as "disengage" at first rather than "disregard"

And the mono variant: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/B612+Mono

Not just me. Maybe it's how it's displayed on the web. I had an immediate "this is awful" response LOL

It may account for the specific displays used in the cockpit, the colors of the font and background, and maybe even interior lighting.

IOW it may be more optimal in its real usage.

Thank you, that's the one thing I'd expect to be a screenshot in a github repo. Regardless, I don't find it particularly legible. The taller aspect ratio with narrow letter gap actually is not super readable to me?

Maybe It's "more readable" for plane screen fonts than the other alternatives. It's not fair looking at a font on a 49" highdef ultrawide and saying "This isn't as good".

Google using anti-Google text specimens is wild: "...No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy,...". Then again, it could have been edited by Gemini.

> Thank you, that's the one thing I'd expect to be a screenshot in a github repo.

Indeed. That’s clearly missing from the readme.

> Maybe It's "more readable" for plane screen fonts than the other alternatives. It's not fair looking at a font on a 49" highdef ultrawide and saying "This isn't as good".

Yeah. Their benchmark was suboptimal conditions in an aircraft cockpit. I would assume that they tested drastically different lighting conditions and exotic factors (for a font designed for computers) such as motion, vibration, and crew exhaustion.

There is actually a sample in the repo: https://github.com/polarsys/b612/blob/master/docs/sample.png.

There is a PDF and a PNG in the docs/ folder (https://github.com/polarsys/b612/tree/master/docs), too.

The kerning is not great, for starters

It's very readable at small sizes. Try 8 point.

Edit: even better, grab a METAR from your favorite airport and drop it in at 8 point

Legible != Readable

Legability means you have to be able to differenciate words and letters. With a font specialized for aerospace use that probably also mean it has to retain that quality when printed on panels.

A special requirement I would think of is legability while in motion. Try taking your favourite, perfectly kerned font and reading it while shaking your head wildly in poor light conditions, then you get a hint of why this font isn't optimized for looks.

Maybe the taller aspect ratio is due to cockpit surfaces being more horizontal or vertical than eyesight..?

Like letters/words painted on the road for drivers to read them.

That's surprisingly readable for such a tiny size!

I wonder if the main effect is that it is readable for people with begining presbyopia (like me). It seems that this is a problem particularly for pilots and it can be compensated heavily by optimizing visual processing [0]. I at least have the feeling that the small font could be perfect for packaging as it seems to be better readable with my age related farsightedness and could relieve my struggles shopping.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004269891...

It's funny, I see it and immediately feel it has too much spacing on that specimen page. On my laptop screen at its default presentation, it approaches where my brain starts to fixate on dissociated letters instead of words.

I've also experimented with custom fonts on my (Garmin) watch and found that taller and narrowly spaced characters seem to increase legibility for me. This is for mostly decimal data, and I want to read with very brief glances, in challenging viewing conditions, rather than linger to appreciate the graphemes.

Well I have slightly more advanced than beginning presbyopia and wear reading glasses almost all the time now. My experience with most fonts is why I noted B612's legibility at small sizes.

Atkinson Hyperlegible is very specifically designed for visual accessibility, and it's what I use in my automation app, both for accessibility and on the assumption that it's probably also a good general purpose high reliability font.

But another comment pointed out that B612 might be specifically tested in conditions with vibration and fatigue and other factors like that. I wonder how Atkinson compares?