Subacme

Last month, Microsoft released Windows Developer Preview for its next operating system, Windows 8.  One of the most visible yet least discussed changes is in the Segoe UI fonts.

Segoe (top) vs Segoe UI (bottom)

Segoe UI was derived from Segoe, a controversial typeface that Microsoft originally licensed from Monotype.  A number of modifications (as shown above) were done to make Segoe UI more suitable for on-screen display.  However, some of these changes have seemingly disappeared in the Developer Preview’s interface, and several new changes have been introduced.

A more detailed look into the new font files reveals an exciting fact: the modified letterforms are implemented as an OpenType feature (stylistic set 20, ss20), along with other new features including ligatures, small caps, old-style and tabular (monospaced) numerals, and more.

Some of the new features of Segoe UI

There are no italic variants for Semibold and Semilight. It should also be noted that currently available italic variants do not contain as many new features as their Roman counterparts do (not even ligatures). If this suggests that the development is going on, we can probably expect another great typeface with the next release of the world’s most popular operating system.

The Previewing the New Version of Segoe UI by Subacme, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.