Screenfont.CA

All about fonts for captions and subtitles

Screenfont.CA is an activity of the Open & Closed Project. We are researching and developing a set of standards for captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing.

Screenfonts are important because, in captioning and subtitling, our instrument is typography.

Hot topics

Old report for Ascender & Microsoft on screenfonts for captioning · Captioning Sucks! launches · Caption size on iPods and online video · HDTV · Tiresias Screenfont (and why it’s terrible) · Reusing Web screenfonts · Fonts to use in the meantime

Why are screenfonts important?

With captions and subtitles, we’re creating visible words that we expect people to read and understand almost instantaneously before the words disappear. Font quality becomes – and already is – an issue. It may surprise you to learn that there are no screenfonts in existence that:

We’ll be commissioning and designing our own screenfonts (we’ve already begun), testing them to prove they work, and selling them. We want you to learn more – and we invite your participation.

Updates

Check the What’s New page for updates. You can also subscribe to our newsfeed.