TV Core Font Set

Consisting of 16 weights that comprise the Screen™ family, the TV core font set is designed especially for low-resolution devices such as TV screens. The Screen typeface outperforms alternatives because of its readability. Characters are easy to distinguish and easy on the eyes, regardless of screen resolution.

The Screen design sets the maxim for “transparent type” – when words themselves must make the statement – not the type. Clarity is critical when displaying messages that need to be read and understood quickly. Anything less draws attention to the product as inferior, perhaps even difficult to use.

Set-top boxes and interactive TVs (as well as mobile phones and PDAs) can benefit from the iType™ font engine, Monotype Imaging’s scalable font subsystem for rendering high-quality characters within memory-constrained environments. The iType font engine works with industry-standard TrueType® fonts – or highly compact stroke-based fonts – and includes a fast TrueType rasterizer.

The Screen Typeface – Designed For Ultimate Readability
The sans serif, serif and monospace weights were designed to overcome conditions that compromise on-screen readability. Text – especially small characters – is subject to ambiguity or blurriness when displayed on TV and other low-resolution screens.

Letters and low-resolution display screens are generally an unfriendly combination. Delicate character components – such as stems and hairlines – often break up or fade out against the high-contrast backgrounds of display screens. Also, because lowercase letters typically have a small x-height (the height of the letter excluding ascenders and descenders), characters can look muddled and indistinguishable when displayed on-screen. To dismiss these and other issues that lead to unpleasant reading experiences, the Screen typeface family was designed.

The typeface features a large x-height to improve clarity and to more sharply define lower case letters – a welcome modification since over 95 percent of text in any correspondence is lowercase.

The larger x-height improves clarity and character definition.

Alternative fonts with a smaller
x-height are often more difficult to read on TV or other high-contrast screens.

Additional thickness has been applied to stems and serifs to offset contrast and to increase readability on mobile phones, PDAs and TVs – especially when viewing TV at a distance.

More importantly, each character has been designed to be easily recognizable and unambiguous.

Characters are clear and legible.

Alternative fonts often produce
indistinct characters.

Special Effects
The Screen design can be manipulated within the iType font engine to produce a variety of character edges or special effects.

Closed Captioning
The Screen design is also part of Monotype Imaging’s closed caption font set, a collection that allows manufacturers to meet FCC-mandated specifications for closed captioning.

Screen Family

Screen typeface family features and benefits

Feature

Benefit

Exceptional readability

Viewers are able to distinguish each character clearly and quickly, regardless of size.

Superior screen quality

Viewers can see all aspects of character forms without degradation that may be caused by the device itself, such as low screen resolution or high background contrast.

Scalability

Characters can be displayed at any intended size, without the burden of storing additional bitmap fonts to accommodate varying sizes.

Transparent Type
The metaphor, transparent type, was coined by Beatrice Warde, Monotype’s famous marketing manager of the 1930s and 40s. She once wrote in an article that good type is like “a crystal goblet” which allows content to be more important than the container. Warde believed that the best typefaces do not get in the way of the communication process. The best faces are virtually invisible and allow words to make the statement – not the type. One of the objectives of the Screen design is to meet Warde’s idea of transparent type.