Ubuntu (typeface)

History and features

The font was first introduced in October 2010 with the release of Ubuntu 10.10 in four versions: Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic in English. With the release of Ubuntu 11.04 in April 2011, additional fonts and expanded language coverage were introduced. The final development is intended to include a total of thirteen fonts, consisting of:

• Ubuntu in Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic
• Ubuntu Monospace in Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic
• Ubuntu Light in Regular and Italic
• Ubuntu Medium in Regular and Italic
• Ubuntu Condensed in Regular only

The monospace version, used in terminals, was initially planned to ship with Ubuntu 11.04. However, it was delayed and instead shipped with Ubuntu 11.10 as the default system monospace font.

The font is fully Unicode compliant and contains Latin A and B extended character sets, Greek polytonic, and Cyrillic extended. In addition, it has become the first native operating system font to include the Indian rupee sign. The font has been designed primarily for use on screen displays, and its spacing and kerning is optimized for body copy sizes.

Between 2022 and 2023, the typeface was updated to a slimmer design and enhanced with variable axes. The revised family, named Ubuntu Sans, was released alongside Ubuntu 24.04.

Usage

The Ubuntu Font Family is the default font for the current and development releases of the Ubuntu operating system and is used for the Ubuntu project branding.

Ubuntu has been included in the Google Fonts directory, making it easily available for web typography, and as of April 26, 2011, it is included for use in Google Docs.

Ubuntu Bold Italic is also used in the bitcoin logotype, alongside the bitcoin symbol.

Ubuntu Sans is the font used in the "GIF Maker" by the popular GIF sharing app Tenor. The font has become very popular in internet meme culture, being used commonly to caption GIFs and images.

Ubuntu Font Licence

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The Ubuntu Font Licence is an "interim" license designed for the Ubuntu Font Family, which has used the license since version 0.68. The license is based on the SIL Open Font License.

The Ubuntu Font Licence allows the fonts to be "used, studied, modified and redistributed freely" given that the license terms are met. The license is copyleft and all derivative works must be distributed under the same license. Documents that use the fonts are not required to be licensed under the Ubuntu Font Licence.

Fedora and Debian have reviewed this license and converged on interpreting it as non-free due to incomplete or ambiguous use and modification permissions.

References

References

1. "Mark Shuttleworth » Blog Archive » Light: the new look of Ubuntu".
2. Humphrey, Benjamin. (2010-09-28). "New Ubuntu font lands in Maverick for all users".
3. Andrew. "The Ubuntu Font Family Is Now Available In Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat (Officially)".
4. "Ampersand Conference 2011 Focuses on Web Typography".
5. "ttf-ubuntu-font-family package in Ubuntu 10.10 "maverick" archiv... : Ubuntu Font Family".
6. [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu%20Font%20Family Ubuntu Font Family]
7. Sneddon, Joey. (August 2011). "Condensed Variant of Ubuntu Font Debuts". OMG Ubuntu.
8. "Thanks a billion! Ubuntu on Google Webfonts".
9. "MaverickMeerkat/ReleaseNotes - Ubuntu Wiki".
10. "Ubuntu Font Family in Launchpad".
11. "Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) Release Notes".
12. [https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Ubuntu Ubuntu Font Family – Google Web Fonts]
13. (2011-04-26). "Bug #771443 Wishlist: Please add Ubuntu to Google Docs". bugs.launchpad.net.
14. (17 September 2014). "How to create a "Bitcoin accepted here" button?".
15. "What font does Bitcoin use?".
16. "GIF Maker".
17. "Something New and Beautiful: Ubuntu, distilled, in type".
18. "Ubuntu font licence".
19. "Ubuntu font licence".
20. (2013-05-13). "Bug 961642 - Review Request: ubuntu-font-family - The fonts used in Ubuntu Linux". bugzilla.redhat.com/.