Roboto Serif is a variable typeface family designed to create a comfortable and frictionless reading experience. Minimal and highly functional, it is useful anywhere (even for app interfaces) due to the extensive set of weights and widths across a broad range of optical sizes. While it was carefully crafted to work well in digital media, across the full scope of sizes and resolutions we have today, it is just as comfortable to read and work in print media.
To contribute, see github.com/googlefonts/roboto-serif.
Get it on Google Fonts and check out the specimen: Getting Comfortable With Roboto Serif.
It's been almost 20 years since the introduction of Matthew Carter’s Georgia—one of the first serif typefaces designed to make reading easier on the low-resolution screens of the time. That year (1993), Americans with Internet access spent fewer than 30 minutes a month surfing the Web. Now we spend almost seven hours a day.
Thankfully, reading on-screen has gotten a lot more comfortable since the 90’s. For one thing, you can pick up your device and move over to the sofa. Letterforms are also crisper, smoother, and more legible on today’s screens/devices—and they render more quickly. But another huge (though perhaps less obvious) factor in all of this is the advancement of font technology. Georgia was one of the first eleven “Core Fonts for the Web” that paved the way for OpenType and, eventually, variable fonts. Today, a well-designed, OpenType serif can be just as readable on-screen as it is in print. And a well-designed variable serif can give readers additional benefits on-screen. Enter: Roboto Serif.
To learn more, read Say Hello to Roboto Serif.