New Font Features Letters that Look Like People
Available for download on the online development and hosting platform GitHub is a typeface that literally resembles illustrated silhouettes of human beings instead of letters. Titled "Wee People," the project was created using the Glyphs Mini app that is available as part of the Glyph series of font editing software. The images were illustrated by data visualizer Alberto Cairo, and the font was digitally assembled by Scott Klein of the non-profit news organization ProPublica.
As a typeface, the illustrated silhouettes can be expressed by simple capital and lowercase letters on a web page that makes use of Klein's code. A webpage can make use of this creative font by either having it point to a CSS document on ProPublica's GitHub profile or downloading it for local use as a style sheet. A demo page provided on Wee People's download page displays fifty two uniquely illustrated figures that are not image files. Dragging a mouse cursor across them, copying them to a clipboard, and pasting them in a normal text document environment reveals that each image is simply a case-sensitive letter of the alphabet supplying its left half and a space following that letter allowing its right half to be displayed.
Obviously, this font is not meant to resemble Latin script. Instead, it functions as a way to let web designers easily add visuals resembling human silhouettes to their web pages by typing stand-alone letters of the alphabet rather than saving and inserting separate image files. Wee People's creators allow websites to use it for free so long as credit is given on the web pages using it and so long as no attempt to change the shape of any piece of the typeface is made without the creators' allowance. Furthermore, while the typeface may be used freely to enhance the aesthetic design of web pages that generate advertising revenue and may be included in products that users need to pay in order to read, its creators legally disallow any outside attempt to sell it on its own.