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Nebula Sans

nebulasans.com · Read Story HN original

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A handsome font and a worthwhile contribution. Satisfying. Nebula notches yet another mark.
Great! Sounds like you might need some assistance, just let me know if you want to tackle that weekend project you’ve been thinking shoot, practice a new skill, or just chat, I’m right here and happy to help.
Gave me a laugh, but comment was also originally dead'd because I assume sounds too much like AI. (For obvious reasons)
The horrible thing is I wrote that all by hand
..downvoted. OK. Perhaps I didn't say enough:

- I love the use of Source Sans as the base. One of the few purely good things Adobe has done in the past decade were the Source fonts

- The use of Whitney as a target font is also interesting. I like this font a lot but a lot of nice fonts have annoying properties for web dev (looking at you Frutiger) esp around numbers. I have wasted life years fiddling with tabular number presentation.

There, is that enough red meat for you, HN? :)

You cannot be a fancy startup if you don't have your own font I guess.
I wonder when we reach the state of having a perfect font.
Fonts are like cheesecakes. Everyone has their own favorite and there is always room for improvement.
And then there's the cheesecake from La Viña which stands above all others.
I've been making the Basque burnt cheesecake every year lately, it really is a delight
It'll be the same day we reach the state of having the perfect programming language
That happened in 1957, but we can’t leave well enough alone.
We did that with Comic Sans MS
There are people who don't want a perfect font, they want a new one every few years.

The rest of us just don't want it to be distracting.

That's like reaching the state of having a perfect button-down shirt.

Styles change (like collar size, slim vs roomy), and what looks good on one torso doesn't look best on another. What fits well for one company/product/book doesn't fit well for another company/product/book.

> I wonder when we reach the state of having a perfect font.

"Perfect font" can only happen when we stop developing new display technologies, and print dies out completely. If "perfect" is not subjective in the first place, it is definitely context-dependent. Fonts designed to work on budget smartphone displays don't necessarily look good on 6K desktop displays, and so on...

define perfect!

- read? mostly coders

- sell? mostly marketing

- fraud? rn.com vs m.com mostly designers

that reminds me of the time there was one particular combination of my laptop dpi, screen resolution, and windows 2000 font renderer that made lucida sans typewriter look perfect, but when I switched to linux the same font seemed less crisp and clean, and I ended up using bitstream vera instead. I still try lucida sans typewriter out every now and then but whatever sweet spot it hit on that machine never happened again.
I've just been collecting monospace fonts, and have a bit of elisp to cycle through the collection when I'm bored with the current one. (Sometimes that's enough to conclude that no, really, the original was fine and I go back to it :-)
Waste of time and money on their part. There are more than enough typefaces in this world that look just like this one.
According to their website this saved them a lot of money, plus they also made a documentary about making the font which is content for Nebula.
Where did the savings come from? Maybe they were licensing a paid font? I doubt saved them more money than using a free font.
They were licensing Whitney SSm, they switched to a Source Sans derived typeface to save those costs but forked and adjusted it to more closely match Whitney SSm to minimize brand disruption.
In the documentary video, their CCO explained if they used a different existing font they would have had to rework a lot of their media for the different font metrics, while making their own allowed them to have a drop-in replacement.
Saved them money on licensing their existing font, so why didn't they just move to another cheaper or free font?
Because those fonts have different metrics, so they wouldn't have been drop-in replacements, they would have had to re-do all of their branded media.

Loose programming analogy: The free replacements had a slightly different "API" (metrics) that would have required adjusting hundreds or thousands of "call sites" (media using the font), so instead they made their own "API-compatible" (metrically compatible) replacement that dropped straight in.

This is all covered in the documentary short about the font.

I just bought a Nebula subscription, and hadn't heard of it before, so there's some value there
Then this PR stunt worked I suppose. I still see no need to create yet another derivative sans-serif typeface. Especially for an online streaming service of all things.
"Why bother doing something original when there's something generic that's good enough" is certainly one way to approach things.
No. You know that's not what I'm saying. There are many other very respectable typefaces available that they could have used. This one, while it may be custom made, *looks* generic. If I never saw this post, I would have zero clue they made it in-house. This is a PR stunt to get attention on sites like this.
ok boomer
There are so very, very many things you're missing here.
Explain.
In the documentary video, their CCO explained if they used a different existing font they would have had to rework a lot of their media for the different font metrics, while making their own allowed them to have a drop-in replacement.
We're apes on a spinning rock... Time and money are both made up, Let the people enjoy their font lol
The differences are really, really subtle, I'd bet most people (including me) would have a really hard time telling them apart.

I agree with that one person (I can't recall when or where I read this) who said modern typography is getting so frivolous about doing personalised typographic families for startups instead of extending the existing ones to cover more languages and scripts than latin.

But as they say here, "por la plata baila el perro" (something like "a dog would dance for money")

“For the money, dances the dog” —Yoda
I'm not sure we are looking at the same font, this one looks way crispier and more readable than any other font I have ever seen before.
Typography is just a nice geeky topic. Happy for the people who could make Nebula pay them for fussing around with a font. It's clearly bikeshedding and irrelevant though. If their previous font was too expensive, they should have switched to an existing free font. Their priority should be the streaming offerings. When the business isn't working, it's not the furniture that you have to replace.

I one subscribed to CuriosityStream and Nebula in a combo deal, but didn't end up watching it much. I find them to be overproduced edutainment that's often too plastic for my taste. A kind of Netflix but for IFL science redditor types. I rather prefer low production quality YouTube videos from oddball makers who just show something cool, explain something obscure with a simple slideshow etc.

The differences are even subtler if you compare it to Source Sans (which it is derived from) rather than Whitney (which it is replacing). I posted this comparison last time Nebula Sans were on the HN front page: https://imgur.com/JPwgYkj
para la plata baila el mono -- Wilfrido Vargas 1994
> A versatile, modern, humanist sans-serif with a neutral aesthetic

Good God I am sick to the back teeth of the neutral aesthetic. If you're going to spend all that money, can we have some _opinionated_ typefaces please? Especially against the backdrop of AI making everything look and feel exactly the same everywhere, the last thing anybody needs is another neutral, characterless, soulless typeface.

I definitely agree with your sentiment in general. However, I'll note that I find this sans serif to have a nicer feel than many I see these days (even among humanist ones) and it's cool that they've managed to achieve that while being acceptably inoffensive for mainstream use
There's something so ... bland about this typeface. I get no feeling from it whatsoever. It's like the textual embodiment of the AI conversational style.
Its very boring. This trend started with the Nazis taking away Fraktur. Bland typefaces=nazism (this is what Adorno would say probably).
from https://nebula.tv/nebulasans:

> When Nebula found itself facing exorbitant fees to license the font it relied on for all of its branding, the company decided to find a new font that would work just as well.

Which they license for 30 per year?

EDIT: Now I realize the 30 per year is for a video service.

Is it just me or does this look really... cheap?
It's a little beside the point of the post, but I just want to fly a flag for Nebula: I subscribed solely to get early versions of Jet Lag: The Game, but I'm finding myself watching it more and more! It has many of the channels I would go to YouTube for, but I've also discovered several really good ones that I had never heard of. And it has a similar feel to Kagi, in the sense of "freeing" yourself from the algorithm. It happens so often on YouTube that I see a video recommended but think to myself "if I click this, am I going to get recommendations for terrible stuff for the next month? What does this tell Google about me?". Same thing with all the big streaming services.

With Nebula, no such worry. The homepage and app isn't creepily algorithmically designed to optimize my engagement with the platform, it's just a bunch of high-quality videos and channels that I can watch with no fuss. It's remarkable how nice that feels in 2026. Really highly recommended.

Seconded. My only complaint is the bad buffering on the TV versions of the Nebula app. It starts out so low quality and takes forever to snap to 1080p, with no option to override quality, on symmetrical 2.5GBe.
Obviously YMMV, but I haven't had any issues like that, the quality of the videos is the same I get in the YouTube app. They take a few seconds longer to start though.
> It happens so often on YouTube that I see a video recommended but think to myself "if I click this, am I going to get recommendations for terrible stuff for the next month?

You can remove videos from your watch history. Or you can open the link in a private/incognito window. Google may still be able to connect it but I don't think it will impact your recommendations that way.

Yes, of course you can, but this sense of always having to curate your watch history and hide from the algorithm is just not there for Nebula. I guess it's different from person to person, but it's remarkable how freeing it feels to me to use a service where that isn't a concern. I'm watching what I want to watch, not what the algorithm is manipulating me to click on.

Maybe it will enshittify like most everything else, but it hasn't so far, and for now I'm a very happy customer.

To me it doesnt feel limiting. I curate it to get good recommendations. I also switch between accounts. One for trash binges, and one for everyday stuff, one for serious technical content etc.

I use "do not recommend this channel" a lot, and click "not interested" a lot. Open the YouTube front page, remove stuff you would prefer not to have there, refresh, repeat, the algo will adapt.

Same hygiene on social media. Add muted phrases, mute people, click "not interested". It improves the experience a lot.

You can also just turn off your watch history completely and use the subscriptions page as your starting point. I did that for a while, but turned it back on when I realized that the algorithm was actually quite good at surfacing content that I learned a lot from -- most of it was stuff that I would never search for on my own (or even know to search for).
I suggest just turning off watch history/suggestions.

I only use YouTube when I want to watch something specific. If I find something I want to return to, I like it or bookmark it or add it to a playlist.

I feel like the only thing I'm missing is a home page which doesn't tell me I have watch history disabled.

The problem is that ad-blocking makes youtube the best value proposition for users. You get almost all the content of nebula, plus tons more, for free, no ads.

Don't get me wrong, Nebula is great (although yt actually has a better profit share believe it or not), but the internet needs to look in the mirror before services like it can actually compete with yt.

On Nebula even the built in ads for Squarespace are gone too. Sure you could use sponsorblock, but for me I'm happy to support Nebula as their creator netowrk are people I want to support directly with my dollars.
This surprised me, so I looked it up. Basically YouTube pays ~55% and Nebula pays 50%.

This is complicated by Nebula's "creator owned" situation. Which is complicated [0]. It's something like:

  - Nebula's assets live in Watch Nebula LLC

  - Watch Nebula LLC is owned by 83% Standard Broadcast and 16% Curiosity Stream (CURI)

  - Standard Broadcast "is owned by 44 total people, all of whom are creators"
So it's fair to say there are creators with significant equity stakes in Nebula. It's NOT fair to assume that the 50% of revenue left after share is distributed evenly among all creators on the platform via an equity mechanism.

Of course then there's Floatplane, which is entirely owned by LMG. At least a couple years ago they targeted "a 70/30 split" but arrive there via "a fixed cost menu for features [...] based on bandwidth/maintenance costs' [1]

I'm glad YT is still sharing a meaningful amount of money with creators.

[0] https://medium.com/@cameron-paul/who-actually-owns-nebula-95...

[1] https://linustechtips.com/topic/1335443-floatplane-creator-s...

percentages are meaningless in the ad space and I think topic specific CPM would be a more meaningful comparison. Even on youtube itself things like kids toy videos can make 4x or more per 1M views when compared to a Political show or something technical.
Of cause, I assume it's difficult to compare 50% of paid subscriptions to 55% of ad revenue. I have heard that YouTubers earn per view from premium subscribers than from ad supported views.
I suspect that 50% at no risk of demonetization is quite a bit more than 55% with it for quite a significant chunk of those content creators.
> I'm glad YT is still sharing a meaningful amount of money with creators.

They're doing their best to stop sharing anything with all but the largest creators, since they keep increasing the monetisation requirements.

The problem is, google is an advertising company now the "ad-blocking makes all content free" is a temporary argument at best. At any rate, I like Nebula's curated content better than the ai-slop/clickbait slop Youtube provides.

Only pet peeve I have is... jeffiot is in Nebula, Tom Scott is in Nebula, Lindsey Ellis is in Nebula... where is f4mi????????

We shouldn't forget that Google tried to push the whole remote browser stack attestation thing (WEI). That is where they want to go. We shouldn't follow them there.
I have both, and I find my YouTube home page way more diverse than Nebula. Nebula is an invite-only clique and they invite people who look like them. YouTube, for me, has a lot more British creators, a lot more people of colour, a lot more women creators, a bigger diversity of topics and subjects, a lot more deep technical stuff. Nebula is a lot of American guys discussing movies and politics, with only the very recent addition of Token Brit Tom Scott.

I'm yet another person who only got Nebula for week-early access to Jet Lag, and I think if that particular show ever went away or took an extended break, Nebula would be struggling. I find myself watching something on YouTube most evenings, I rarely find myself on Nebula when Jet Lag isn't on.

Wasn't Abigail PhilosophyTube, a British woman, one of the Nebula founders? I guess perhaps it has changed since the early days.I remember them kicking off JT Second Thought.
I'm not saying it doesn't have any, just that it doesn't have as many. My YouTube is just so much more diverse in every way, I'm never going to get my favourite UK canal boat creators on Nebula for instance. Nebula is a narrow thing for a narrow audience that likes one specific type of online video.

My Nebula runs out at the end of the year and I'm not renewing, I'm not that fussed about seeing Jet Lag a week late, and none of the other stuff is really for me. I'll divvy up my £60 a year Nebula sub to a few creators I like.

I signed up for Nebula, it is a lot more for HD quality, which I though was sneeky.

In the end I never got in the habit of opening Nebula to watch the content.

I pay for Premium YouTube and have noticed when there's an in video ad you can skip through to the end of the ad, YouTube have set that up.

I tend to watch 2 minute of several videos on rotation, I guess I should just put the Apple TV out of reach and I can't keep channel twitching

Yeah I...just never end up opening the Nebula app, which I honestly find harder to use than the Youtube app.
I would absolutely love to subscribe to Nebula but they don't have an Xbox app which is where I watch almost all my TV/Youtube/streaming. I hope they have the resources to do it at some point.
Seconding this. I've been subscribed to Nebula for a couple years, as I watch a lot of video essayists on Youtube and like half of them are on Nebula. In addition to ad-free viewing, you also get:

* No in-video sponsor segments

* Exclusive videos (including some creators and series that upload primarily to Nebula)

* Early access to some videos

* Uncensored videos, as Nebula does not have the automatic content or copyright enforcement systems that Youtube has

* A decent TV app (at least on Roku), so I can watch ad-free on the TV without paying for Youtube premium

All for a much cheaper price then Youtube Premium ($60 annually vs $160, with frequent promo offers). If you already watch a lot of Youtube channels that are on Nebula, I'd highly recommend it.

Wish these guys did localised pricing. YT Premium costs around ~$12 annually in India. Nebula costs the same $60
I guess Nebula is better for video watching, but without recommendations and video comments, it feels dead. I did pay for it for a year and then gave up. Is the problem me?
Yes, but no.

Different tools work better for different people, if you want/need yt features that aren't found in the alternative then it is the right choice for you.

I log on once a day and can see everything that was uploaded in less than two minutes. No need for recommendations. Considering how cheap it is I'm happy if I only find one or two videos a week worth watching.
I think that's totally fair, it's just different people come to youtube for different things. Nebula is just a different value proposition.
I bought a lifetime subscription originally for Legal Eagle videos (both for the Nebula-exclusive videos and the Nebula-exclusive extras at the end of the videos), but I've also enjoyed Not Just Bikes and Tom Scott's England series.
Unfortunately for me it went the other way. I was an early Nebula subscriber but in my experience the content got super stale and I found myself struggling to find anything interesting to watch after a few months. After a few years of using it maybe once a quarter, I pulled the plug. I hope it's temporary and I am an avid Kagi user so I am 100% willing to pay for add free content. I wish Nebula had a pay-per-view option so I could pay for the content I use.
Nebula is very much my cup of tea in theory but the android app is So Bad that I unsubbed. Watching a long video and need to stop? Better luck next time, we're not about to save your spot. Didn't remember the exact name of something? Good luck finding it again. Not at all interested in a certain creator? Too bad! You're going to see them whenever they produce.
> The homepage and app isn't creepily algorithmically designed to optimize my engagement with the platform

A simple fix for YouTube is bookmarking the subscriptions page and making that your entrypoint: https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

This is interesting, I didn't know about Nebula. Anything to support less intrusive platforms and stop being followed for months by horrible content because you clicked on the wrong video.
I absolutely love the idea behind Nebula, but to this day there isn't a single creator there that I'm interested in actively following...

A big part of it is just my hobbies being different, but a no small part is that the videos are still the same YouTube videos that are first and foremost built to satisfy the algorithm. And since these are all people who are successful on YouTube, the concentration of such videos is higher than on actual YouTube.

For the past day or so I’ve been baffled why this font has lingered on HN’s front page. And I read this comment several times and I kept wondering what is he talking about, it’s just a font. A very good font that I actually think is nice and my friend who is a designer is quite taken by, but still it’s a font.

Today, I finally search for nebula streaming and found the actual site his comment is referring to so here it is: https://nebula.tv/

Side note: it’s a minor nit that HN seems to have a very frequent problem with threads getting hijacked with unrelated comment threads, often the top comment(s). I wish there was a way to split the comments off with a new title that clearly explained that this is not related to the original post.

Pipe, capital i, small l are just line

Edit: WOW I did not know if that I write WHAT I don't like, then I will get downwoted here, like on other sites for pure hatred, ynews really goes down

I've been looking for a humanist, sustainable font
I've been looking for a humanist, sustainable font

I'm holding out for a free-range, gluten-free paleo font.