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PolarSys B612 font family

B612 is an highly legible open source font family designed and tested to be used on aircraft cockpit screens.

Main characteristics are:

• Maximize the distance between the forms of the characters
• Respect the primitives of the different letters
• Harmonize the forms and their spacing

The genesis of PolarSys B612

In 2010, Airbus initiated a research collaboration with ENAC and Université de Toulouse III on a prospective study to define and validate an “Aeronautical Font”: the challenge was to improve the display of information on the cockpit screens, in particular in terms of legibility and comfort of reading, and to optimize the overall homogeneity of the cockpit.

2 years later, Airbus came to find Intactile DESIGN to work on the design of the eight typographic variants of the font. This one, baptized B612 in reference to the imaginary asteroid of the aviator Saint‑Exupéry, benefited from a complete hinting on all the characters.

Releasing a new version of the font

• Update the version number in the font info of the source files
• Make a copy of the source files
• Open the copies in Fontlab
• Run the merge intersection command on each file
• Generate the ttf files
• Run the build script from the scripts folder to fix digital signature

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2012, AIRBUS (airbus-group.com). All rights reserved.

License

This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v2.0 and Eclipse Distribution License v1.0 and the SIL Open Font License v1.1 which accompanies this distribution. The Eclipse Public License is available at https://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v20.html and the Eclipse Distribution License is available at https://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/edl-v10.php. The SIL Open Font License v1.1 is available at https://scripts.sil.org/OFL