Back in the days when he was a student, Portuguese graphic and type designer Natanael Gama started to play with glyphs — as a way to discover typography. Doodling around, he created Exo, a font which he released for free in a Kickstarter project. The project turned out to be quite successful. Exo became so popular that Natanael did a complete redesign.

It was two years ago. Today, Natanael is no longer a student and Exo has evolved into what we are happy to present to you today: Exo 2.0, an elegant, contemporary geometric sans serif typeface.

For Exo 2.0, every single glyph has been redesigned from scratch to achieve maximum legibility without compromising on the aesthetics.

Exo 2.0 has a more organic look and increased contrast, so it performs much better at small font sizes and on long passages of text. The fatigue of the reader is reduced by increasing the white space around the glyphs. Exo 2.0 has been released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Exo 2.0 now has a bigger language coverage specially due to the integration of cyrillic characters in all the glyphs on all of the 9 weights both in upright and italic. All glyphs were hinted. Hinting adjusts the design of the glyphs to the pixel grid, creating a better flow of text specially on small font sizes.

Exo 2.0 is a very versatile font. It has 9 weights (the maximum on the web) and each with a true italic version.

Download The Freebie

• Download the font for free (.zip, 0.75 MB)

Behind The Design

Here are some insights from Natanael himself:

Along with the redesign of the glyphs, I also redesigned the space around the glyphs. Typography is designing the form as much as designing the counter form. Spacing and kerning was a problematic issue in the older Exo, but now it looks beautiful (however, don’t buy it from me, test it for yourself).

This new design is very versatile and I hope to see it used in very different contexts, as the first version has been used. Exo 2.0 has a very contemporary look, so if you want your design to look fresh and stand out, I encourage you to use it.

Even though this font was primarily designed with screens in mind, I also thought about print, so don’t be admired if you see subtle ink traps and find some ligatures for you to have some fun.

(ea)

© The Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2013.

Registration is now open for the online symposium on Accessible E-Learning to be held on 16 December 2013. Researchers, tutors and trainers, providers of online learning, developers of Learning Content Management System (LCMS), users with disabilities, and others are invited to participate. Symposium participants will share e-learning experiences and research; discuss different approaches to address accessibility issues in e-learning contexts; and explore next steps to advance accessibility in e-learning environments, including Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). For details and registration, see Accessible E-Learning: Online Symposium. Learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Baltimore’s biggest critic is still “wired” up. 

It’s been a little over five years since the end of “The Wire” – the HBO hit that depicted life in the toughest parts of Baltimore – but creator David Simon still has a lot to say about his city…and his country overall

Simon was one of the headliners at last month’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney. The annual festival, in it’s fifth year, has, of course, been the center of controversy.

Simon’s talk,”Some People Are More Equal than Others,” enjoyed the company of other talks like “The End of the Homosexual,” “To Die Rich is to Die Disgraced,” and “Teach Your Children to Fail.”

All of the talks are available for viewing here.

“There are definitely two Americas. I live in one, on one block in Baltimore that is part of the viable America, the America that is connected to its own economy, where there is a plausible future for the people born into it. About 20 blocks away is another America entirely. It’s astonishing how little we have to do with each other, and yet we are living in such proximity.”

Simon went on to explain his frustrations with the current mentality in the U.S.

He stated his belief that capitalism is the only way to sustain an economy.. but he decried its failures…

“We have become something other than what we claim for the American dream and all because of our inability to basically share, to even contemplate a socialist impulse.”

He went on to use the healthcare debate as an example of the general disregard for social responsibility. He also implied that the Citizen’s United case has resulted in capitalism run amok. As he sees it, elections can now be bought and sold.

Simon argued that we have to rediscover our values and make sure that nobody is left behind. The “two Americas” Simon described must become one again.

You can read an edited extract of the speech here.

What’s the more “dangerous idea”- that we take Simon’s advice or choose to ignore him?

The December edition of ‘What’s new for web designers and developers’ includes new web apps, graphic design tools, inspirational resources, web design tools, icons, typography resources, and some really great new fonts.

Many of the resources below are free or very low cost, and are sure to be useful to a lot of designers and developers out there.

As always, if we’ve missed something you think should have been included, please let us know in the comments. And if you have an app or other resource you’d like to see included next month, tweet it to @cameron_chapman for consideration.

Design Faves

Design Faves is new site that offers up plenty of design inspiration every day. There are posts about creativity, general design, art, architecture, and much more.

Bitters

Bitters is a set of pre-made styles for your Bourbon stylesheets. It includes styles for grid settings, forms, lists, typography, and much more.

Type Scale

Type Scale is a visual calculator for creating typographical scales for your designs. Just enter in your base size and what scale you want to use, and it will give you the best sizes for your headers, body, and other text.

Color Template

Color Template is a quick tutorial that will teach you how to choose the best colors for your designs. It starts with the color wheel, and progresses through a number of other color theory topics.

Glifo

Glifo makes it simple to build icon web fonts with Photoshop, but letting you export your PSD icon’s layers with a single click. Just add a * prefix to layers, push a button, and you’ll get a web font!

Ink

Ink is a responsive HTML email framework from Zurb. It lets you quickly create emails that will work on any device or client, even Outlook.

Pantone Color of the Year 2014

Just announced, Pantone’s Color of the Year 2014 is a pinkish shade of purple, called Radiant Orchid. You can download the swatch as an Adobe Applications .ase file.

Kanye vs Creative Director

Kanye vs Creative Director is a fun look at quotes that were either spoken by a creative director or Kanye West. See if you can guess which one, or submit your own quote.

Crowdhoster

Crowdhoster is a service for launching your own crowdfunding page without any coding. You can customize it however you want, and they handle all the payment processing for you and provide you with an admin dashboard.

Smallicons

Smallicons is a set of 330 icons (and five interfaces), 54 of which are free to download. They come in two sizes: 32×32 and 64×64.

Syte

Syte is a simple but powerful way to build a personal website with social integrations like Twitter, GitHub, Instagram, Dribbble, and many more. It even works with WordPress.com or Tumblr for blog integration.

Strikingly

Strikingly is an easy way to create mobile-optimized sites in minutes. It has an easy-to-use editor and all the tools you need to launch your site.

Animatron

Animatron is a simple tool for building HTML5 animations and interactive content. Work right in your browser and save projects in the cloud.

We Work Remotely

We Work Remotely is a new job board from 37signals for finding the best telecommuting jobs out there.

Noisli

Noisli is a background noise and color generator that’s great for relaxing or working. Choose from a variety of sounds you can layer, and check out the color-changing background of the site for a little chromotherapy.

Foundation 5

Foundation 5 is the newest iteration of Zurb’s popular Foundation framework. It has a number of new features and is significantly faster to code, learn, and for users.

The Ginger Project

The Ginger Project is a simple and effortless way to create an “explainer video” for anything you need to explain. You can include voice overs and it includes tools for creating a beautiful look to your projects.

OriDomi

OriDomi is an open source JavaScript library for creating paper-folding effects that can be manipulated by mouse or touch.

Beyond Ink

Beyond Ink is a monthly design podcast for those in the creative or web industries to discuss what they do.

Character-Code.com

Character-Code.com is a reference of common characters and their HTML code, Hexadecimal code, and HTML entity for ASCII characters. It also has handy descriptions of each character.

CSS Wizardry Boilerplate Contract

This CSS Wizardry Boilerplate Contract is a great starting point if you’re looking to create your own contract. It’s licensed freely (without liability, of course) for you to use and change as you see fit.

Slides

Slides from Markdown is a simple way to share your thoughts with the world. Slides can be customized easily, with different fonts, font colors, and more.

iconmelon

iconmelon is an SVG icons library for the web. It includes icons for holidays, pictograms, and much more.

List.js

List.js is an invisible but powerful and incredibly fast JavaScript that adds flexibility, search, sort, and filters to your HTML lists, tables, and anything else.

Sizzlepig

Sizzlepig is a tool for gaining control over your images by resizing multiple images (entire folders, even) with no scripts and no guesswork. It includes tools for scaling, cropping, editing, and more.

Exposure

Exposure is a tool for creating photo narratives online. It’s a great way for photographers to publish their work in a more meaningful but effortless way.

Hello Sailor (free)

Hello Sailor is a tattoo-inspired decorative font from Out of Step Font Company.

Neroli (free)

Neroli is a decorative display font with a funky, modern style, designed by Matias Romero. It’s free for personal use, while commercial use requires a donation.

Klinic Slab (name your price)

Klinic Slab is a slab serif font from Lost Type Co-op in four weights (plus italics), that’s contemporary and versatile.

Minuscule (free)

Minuscule is a free display font currently available as a beta, that comes with all lower-case letters.

Berty Boo ($5)

Berty Boo is a handdrawn font that’s tall and wobbly. It comes in three weights: regular, medium, and bold.

Rivina ($5)

Rivina is a display font that comes with outline and fill alternates for creating unique designs. It’s great for DIY styled projects.

Max Rock ($5)

Max Rock is a sans-serif grunge font with 3 alternates in a single purchase, ranging from lightly textured to thoroughly destroyed.

Seashore Pro ($59)

Seashore Pro is a feminine script with thicker horizontals that create a wave-like appearance. It’s loosely based on the left-leaning penmanship of the late 19th century.

Lumier ($70)

Lumier is a sans serif art-deco-styled typeface inspired by posters from between WWI and WWII. It comes in three weights.

Amerbach 883

Amerbach 883 is a typeface based on the printing works of Johann Amerbach, a successful printer from Basil, Switzerland.

Know of a new app or resource that should have been included but wasn’t? Let us know in the comments.

Smashing Web & Graphics eBook Bundle: 7 eBooks for only $18!

Twitter’s footprint is growing fast, although English speakers in the U.S. remain the largest demographic. The trick now is to turn its global presence into advertising dollars.