Twitter has been experimenting with a number of features lately including a Tip Jar for select people, support for tall images on mobile devices, and Twitter Spaces for users with a lower count of followers.
Back in January, we learned that Twitter is working on a proprietary typeface called "Chirp", and it now appears that the firm has started rolling out this new font to desktop users.
Chirp is a mixture of American Gothic and European Grotesque styles and is a part of Twitter's redesigning and branding efforts announced back in January. Even though the new typeface seemingly started rolling out a few hours ago, there isn't an updated blog post detailing the change as of yet. Describing Chirp a few months ago, Twitter had said that:
We worked with @grillitype in Switzerland to develop Chirp, our first-ever proprietary typeface. Chirp strikes the balance between messy and sharp to amplify the fun and irreverence of a Tweet, but can also carry the weight of seriousness when needed.
To get there we blended American Gothic and European Grotesque styles, adding specific handmade quirks of early woodcut specimens. This gives us a versatile and contemporary family with international sensibilities. We’re in the process of extending Chirp to languages beyond the Latin alphabet.
Although there's no official word regarding rollout as of yet, it does appear to be staggered. Some of our staff members seem to have the new font while others don't. If you click on "View page source" on Twitter in your browser, you'll notice that certain seemingly relevant HTML tags such as the one seen the screenshot below are set to true for users who do have the new typeface:
The reaction of Twitter users who have noticed the change seems to be mixed, to say the least. While some say that they like it, most have extremely negative reviews. But then again, this type of reaction is common when people are required to adapt to change. It's currently unclear when we'll learn more about Twitter's rollout plans for the new typeface.
5 Comments - Add comment