Trisha Shetty (Editor)

Segoe

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Category
  
Sans-serif

Foundry
  
Microsoft Typography

Designer(s)
  
Steve Matteson

Date released
  
2004

Segoe (/ˈsiːɡoʊ/ SEE-goh) is a typeface, or family of fonts, that is best known for its use by Microsoft. The company uses Segoe in its online and printed marketing materials, including recent logos for a number of products. Additionally, the Segoe UI font sub-family is utilized by numerous Microsoft applications, and may be installed by applications (such as Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows Live Messenger 2009). It was adopted as Microsoft's default operating system font beginning with Windows Vista, and is also used on outlook.com, Microsoft's web-based email service. In August 2012, Microsoft unveiled its new corporate logo typeset in Segoe, replacing the logo it had used for the previous 25 years.

Contents

The Segoe name is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation, although the typeface was originally developed by Monotype.

History

Segoe was designed by Steve Matteson during his employment at Agfa Monotype. Licensed to Microsoft for use as a branding typeface and user interface font, it was designed to be friendly and legible. Matteson created a range of weights and italics with a humanist feel.

Licensing controversy

In 2004, Microsoft registered certain Segoe and Segoe Italic fonts as original font designs with the European Union trademark and design office. The German font foundry Linotype protested, citing Segoe UI's similarity to its licensed Frutiger family of typefaces. In its submission to the EU, Microsoft claimed that Linotype had failed to prove that it had been selling Frutiger and Frutiger Next prior to 2004.

The EU rejected these claims, and in February 2006 the EU revoked Microsoft's registration. Microsoft did not appeal the decision. Microsoft still holds United States design patents to various Segoe based fonts.

During the same period, in late 2004, after six years under the Agfa Corporation, the Monotype assets were acquired by TA Associates and the company was incorporated as Monotype Imaging. Later, in August 2006, Monotype Imaging acquired Linotype. So at the end of 2006, Linotype — the company that had challenged the validity of Microsoft's Segoe patents — was a wholly owned subsidiary of the company — Monotype — that had originally licensed Segoe to Microsoft.

Several letters have distinctly different forms in Segoe UI and Frutiger, reflecting Segoe UI's different intended use — low-resolution screen display, rather than airport signage (Frutiger). However, Ulrich Stiehl asserts that many of these differences were introduced in later versions of Segoe UI — earlier versions of Segoe UI were closer to Frutiger.

In November 2005, Simon Daniels, a program manager in Microsoft's typography group, stated that "The original Segoe fonts were not created for or by Microsoft. It was an existing Monotype design which we licensed and extensively extended and customized to meet the requirements of different processes, apps and devices."

In April 2006, a Microsoft public relations spokesman, who asked not to be named, stated:

Segoe was an original design developed by Agfa Monotype (now Monotype Imaging) in 2000. In 2003, we acquired the original Segoe fonts and used them to develop an extended family of fonts retaining the Segoe name. Many of these new fonts received design patent protection in the United States. Segoe was not derived from Frutiger. Microsoft also has a current up-to-date license that allows us to distribute certain Frutiger fonts in connection with Microsoft products including Office and Windows. There are distinct differences between Segoe and Frutiger. Additionally, unlike clone typefaces, the Segoe family of fonts are not metrically compatible with Frutiger so cannot be used as replacements.

Under United States copyright law, the abstract letter shapes of functional text fonts cannot be copyrighted; only the computer programming code in a font is given copyright protection. This makes the production and distribution of clone fonts possible.

Segoe UI

Segoe UI is a member of the Segoe family used in Microsoft products for user interface text, as well as for some online user assistance material, intended to improve the consistency in how users see all text across all languages. It is distinguishable from its predecessor Tahoma and the OS X user interface font Lucida Grande by its rounder letters. Segoe UI was produced by Monotype Imaging.

Light and Semibold versions of Segoe UI were introduced with Windows 7.

In Windows 8, 8.1 and 10, Segoe UI has undergone a number of changes and stylistic additions:

  • A Semilight version was introduced in order to make a perfect lightweight down to 11 pixels.
  • True italic variants were introduced for the Light, Semilight, and Semibold weights.
  • The Light and Semibold versions have been tuned for better quality for screen reading.
  • Typography design changes were made that closely resemble the Segoe WP font family with similarities to Linotype Frutiger. Notable changes have been made from Windows Vista and Windows 7, such as to the letters “I” and “Q”, and the digits 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8.
  • Additional scripts and character sets are supported, such as Arabic, Armenian, Georgian (Mkhedruli and Khutsuri), Hebrew, and Fraser alphabet (Lisu).
  • OpenType variants were included.

    • In Windows 8.1 Segoe UI gained Black and Black Italic weights, but only for Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts.

    Characteristics

    Segoe UI is optimized for Vista's default ClearType rendering environment, and it is significantly less legible when ClearType is disabled, except at key user interface sizes (8, 9 and 10 point) where Segoe UI has been hinted for bi-level rendering. The standard font size increased to 9 point in Windows Vista to accommodate for better layout and readability for all languages.

    The Windows Vista version of Segoe UI (version 5.00) contains complete Unicode 4.1 coverage for Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Arabic (romans only), totaling 2843 glyphs in the regular weight.

    Segoe UI has a true cursive italic, unlike the oblique used in Frutiger and Helvetica.

    Variations

  • Segoe UI Mono is a variation of Segoe UI with monospace characters. It supports Latin (including Eastern European, and Turkish), Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Thai characters, and symbols, geometric shapes and drawing elements. The family includes two fonts in two weights, without italics.
  • Segoe UI Symbol is a new font added in Windows 7 that includes new scripts/symbols such as Braille, Deseret, Ogham or Runic glyphs. It is not however a "symbol charset-encoded font" (like MS Symbol) but rather it is a Unicode-encoded font with symbols assigned to respective Unicode code points. Segoe UI Symbol also has some other miscellaneous symbols such as chess pieces, playing card and dice symbols (these glyphs formed the basis of the Segoe Chess and Segoe News Symbols fonts), box-drawing characters, block elements, technical symbols, mathematical operators, arrows, control pictures, and OCR-optimized glyphs. In Windows 8, Segoe UI Symbol was extended to support Glagolitic, Gothic, Old Italic and Orkhon scripts. In Windows 8.1 it gained support for Meroitic Cursive and Coptic script. The updated Segoe UI Symbol from Windows 8 has also been backported to Windows 7.
  • Segoe UI Historic is a new font added in Windows 10 to support ancient scripts. Coptic, Glagolitic, Gothic, Merotic Cursive, Ogham, Old Italic, and Runic were moved from Segoe UI Symbol to Segoe UI Historic. Additionally supported are Brahmi, Carian, Coptic, Cypriot, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Imperial Aramaic, Inscriptional Pahlavi, Inscriptional Parthian, Kharosthi, Lycian, Lydian, Old Persian, South Arabian, Old Turkic, Phoenician, Shavian, Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform, Syriac, and Ugaritic scripts.
  • Segoe Print is a font family based on the handwriting of Monotype Imaging employee Brian Allen, developed by Carl Crossgrove, James Grieshaber and Karl Leuthold. The family includes 2 fonts in 2 weights, without italics. It supports WGL character sets.
  • Segoe Script is a font family designed by Carl Crossgrove-based from the handwriting of Brian Allen, but includes extended strokes found in cursive handwriting. It is produced by Monotype Imaging. By using stylistic alternate OpenType feature, the unlinked letters become accessible. The family includes 2 fonts in 2 weights, without italics. It supports WGL character sets.
  • Segoe Chess is a symbol encoded chess font, designed by Steve Matteson and Jim Ford.
  • Segoe Media Center is a font family built for and privately installed with Windows Media Center in 2 weights: light and semibold. It resembles the original Segoe, but is not optimized for ClearType rendering.
  • Segoe TV is a font family built into MSN TV set-top-boxes. It retains characteristics of the original Segoe, such as sans-serif capital I and straight tail in capital Q, whereas other characters have been redrawn such as the i and j.
  • Segoe WP is the Windows Phone 7 specific version of Segoe. The Segoe WP family is distributed with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Currently, only release candidate beta version is available (March 2010).
  • Zegoe UI is a Zune-specific variation on Segoe.
  • In Windows 8.1 Microsoft added unofficial color support to fonts, first implemented in the Segoe UI Emoji font.

    • Emoji demo

    Below is the full list of emoji. If this typeface is not installed on your system, they will display in the default font or will be displayed as empty square boxes (sometimes may displayed as a square box with a question mark or an X).

    Availability

  • The Segoe UI font family can be obtained as part of Windows OS from Vista to 10 (included also on Windows Server 2008 onwards). Certain Segoe fonts, but not Segoe UI, were included in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, replacing Trebuchet MS.
  • Segoe UI is installed into Windows XP if the user installs Microsoft Office 2007 and Office 2010; Windows Live Messenger, or Windows Live Mail, which are available as free downloads. Microsoft Word Viewer and Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer 2007 install certain Segoe fonts, but not Segoe UI.
  • A semilight version of Segoe UI is installed into Windows 7 if the user installs Microsoft Office 2013.
  • An early version of Segoe, possibly an evaluation version, was included with certain versions of SuSE Linux, but no longer ships as part of that operating system. On June 7, 2005 Scala, an electronic signage company (unrelated to the typeface FF Scala), announced that Segoe was being removed from its InfoChannel product "due to licensing issues". Scala replaced Segoe with Bitstream Vera fonts.
  • At one time, Microsoft also posted a package called Print Ad for Microsoft Dynamics Business Management Solutions Brief Description to the Microsoft downloads center. The package included TrueType and PostScript Type 1 beta versions of the Segoe branding fonts along with PowerPoint templates and marketing material.
  • Segoe Print, Segoe Script are included with Windows Vista.
  • Segoe Chess 1.00 is included with Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010.
  • Although Segoe Print, Segoe Script and Segoe UI can be installed on macOS (like all TrueType flavor OpenType fonts), Microsoft does not include them with Mac Office or any other Mac product.

    • Other font families

    The Latin glyphs from Segoe and Segoe UI can also be found in the following Microsoft font families: Malgun Gothic (Korean), Microsoft JhengHei (Traditional Chinese), Microsoft YaHei (Simplified Chinese), Gisha (Hebrew), Leelawadee (Thai). In Windows 7, they are also found in Ebrima (N'Ko, Tifinagh, Vai), Khmer UI (Khmer), Lao UI (Lao), Microsoft New Tai Lue (Tai Lue), Microsoft PhagsPa (Phags-pa), Microsoft Tai Le (Tai Le).

    In these fonts some of the glyph shapes diverge significantly from Segoe UI and the Frutiger/Myriad model and are in some ways more calligraphic. In Gisha and Leelawadee the capital M is narrower and has a raised apex, the lowercase i and l have tails, and the capital I has no serifs. These characteristics are also seen in Segoe UI italic.

    Microsoft released Selawik as a metric-compatible Segoe UI replacement, and Symbols as a Segoe UI Symbols and Segoe MDL2 Assets fallback, under SIL OFL in 2015. These fonts are used in WinJS and Winstrap. Selawik is also one of Microsoft's recommended fonts for Universal Windows Platform apps.

    References

    Segoe Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA