San Francisco
San Francisco
Apple, 2014
Sans-serif · An Apple device, since 2015.
Apple's first in-house typeface since the 1980s, drawn first for the Apple Watch where text is very small and then extended across every platform, replacing Helvetica Neue. It changes its letter spacing and even its letterforms automatically by size — a display cut above 20 points, a text cut below — which is a revival of an idea from metal type, where every size was cut separately.
The facts
- Designed by
- Apple
- Released
- 2014
- Classification
- Sans-serif
- What it signals now
- An Apple device, since 2015.
Where you have seen it
- Every Apple operating system since 2015
- The Apple Watch, which it was drawn for first
Other typefaces from the 2010s
| Typeface | Year | Designer | What it signals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roboto | 2011 | Christian Robertson | Android. Google. An app. |
| Open Sans | 2011 | Steve Matteson | A website built between 2012 and 2018. Neutral, open, free. |
| Inter | 2017 | Rasmus Andersson | A software product designed after about 2019. Screen-native, neutral, everywhere. |
This page describes the typeface rather than showing it. Displaying a specimen requires a licensed font file and almost none of these may be redistributed, so the descriptions name the letters to look at instead.
Common questions
- Who designed San Francisco?
- Apple, in 2014.
- What is San Francisco used for?
- An Apple device, since 2015. You will have seen it on Every Apple operating system since 2015, The Apple Watch, which it was drawn for first.
Related pages
- Typefaces from the 2010s 4 here
- Akzidenz-Grotesk H. Berthold AG, 1896
- Franklin Gothic Morris Fuller Benton, 1902
- Johnston Edward Johnston, 1916
- Futura Paul Renner, 1927
- Gill Sans Eric Gill, 1928
- Helvetica Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, 1957
- Univers Adrian Frutiger, 1957
- Optima Hermann Zapf, 1958
Sources
- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place