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Did You Notice Something a Little Different?
UPDATE: Thanks for all the feedback! For those of you who were having issues with blurriness, we have good news: we pushed out an update this afternoon that improves the sharpness of the font for users who were affected. We’re monitoring all the comments and will keep you posted on any further updates.
If you’re a frequent visitor to Goodreads, you've probably noticed a few tweaks we’ve made to the fonts and colors on the desktop site today. Our goal with these small-but-important changes was to consolidate and refresh our visual styles and lay the groundwork for some design improvements that we’re planning in the future.
What’s different?
To enhance the readability of text on Goodreads, we’ve adopted two new open-source fonts. Lato, our sans-serif font, was designed by Warsaw-based designer Łukasz Dziedzic (“Lato” means “Summer” in Polish). Merriweather, our serif font, was created by Eben Sorkin and was designed to be pleasant to read on screens.
To make it easier to scan the page for information you need, we’ve touched up and modernized the design of common page layout elements like section headers, tabs and links.
To simplify and modernize our visual design, we’ve reduced the number of link colors we use, removed gradients from buttons and the site navigation, and applied a more harmonious color palette to interactive elements such as buttons, stars, and links.
Before:
Comments Showing 51-100 of 3,113 (3113 new)
Text hurt my eyes. And some letters are not in the font ā č ē ģ ļ ķ ņ š ž Looks ugly that they are out of sink
Please implement anti-aliasing, the legibility is terrible.
Maybe it's Chrome, but the font looks broken on GR now!The Lato font is okay it seems, but the main font, Merriweather, is BS!
Not impressed. Very difficult to see. My eyes are bad enough as it is, I didn't need the extra help ruining them.
The font is very difficult to read. It looks blurry.
That font is quite bad, bordering on horrible ... Sorry :/
Don't really like the changes, but does that mean GR will actually listen? Probably not.
Its going to take some getting used to but Im really happy with the change. The website already looks a lot more modern now, I think its good to do some retouching :) The website is getting a bit outdated. Embrace the change!
Well, i like it. Its a nice change, we'll get used to it.
I like the changes, but I can see why a lot of people hate it.
I really don't care for the new carrot color for the stars.
Alexandra wrote: "Haha I was SO waiting for Goodreads to finally make the site better, not like it's from the 90s, and all they did is even smaller fonts that I have to zoom in to 150%. "Hey Alexandra - we've increased the font size for updates on the home page. Is there a particular location where you're seeing a smaller font size?
Our goal for this update was to address issues about inconsistent fonts and colors across the site, but it’s certainly not the only thing our designers are working on!
At least give us the option between new vs old! I feel like I have to squint to read this, and it's plenty big as far as the size itself goes.
Thank goodness those horrible gradients are gone!!I'm iffy about the new serif font, but love the new headings and the drop of gradients.
we need the font to be a little bigger, BIGGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It looks better in IE, but on Firefox it's very hard to read. Like Alexandra said, you really have to zoom in to see entire letters.
Alexandra wrote: "Huge titles, tiny text, total chaos in fonts"
I agree, horrible huge titles, and tiny blurred text. So unpleasant to read. Makes me not want to go on the site as regularly as I do. I refreshed the page a few times, thinking it was a mistake, that my internet/computer was acting up, making it go crazy.
![Cheshire Cat [Heidi]~ We're All Mad Here ~](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1454696753p1/40221410.jpg)
Oh, just wondering, what was the purpose behind making my picture a circle shape, instead of a rectangle one? I don't see why that would make it better. I would like it if you changed it back, but like the Yosemite update for Macs, I'll get used to it.
Good God... right... this is... new. Sorry, but no... just... no...
I like the new colors and the overall feeling, it's refreshing and it looks more modern. Otherwise, what's the point in using different fonts? It's tiresome to adjust when you switch between websites or in the same page (the font is not the same in the comment box and the comments?!).
I just want some color in book names, series, authors and my friends names instead of bold black all over.
I don't like it at all. Terrible, just terrible.
I think it's easier to read and looks better. Good job!
Difficult to read. Too difficult. Why change something that's good?
aw, the font makes the Czech letter ř look weird (comparison: r/ř Ř/R) :( at least it shows weirdly when books have it in the title. Example: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... also it's all blurry - bold font and headlines. Regular font is okay.edit: well, all of the letters with the little thingy on top look weird, kinda small and bold. See for yourself: e/ě, š/s, č/c, ž/z, ů/u... :C the old font didn't have these problems. It might not seem so different when I just write it here but in entire sentences (as in the description of the book I linked above) it is really jarring
Okay the longer I'm looking at this. This is starting to challenge my eyes. Like my eyes are going off center trying to focus on things. I'm in power of toggling between the old way and the new way. As the smaller font is just too narrow and the flatness of things just doesn't seem right to my eyes.
I must admit that the previous font was easier to read compared to the font there is now. It makes it seem like the letters are blurring together >~< It makes it really hard to read when everything looks like it will blur together.
I'm on Firefox, and to me, the font seems bigger here.
Emily wrote: "Alexandra wrote: "Haha I was SO waiting for Goodreads to finally make the site better, not like it's from the 90s, and all they did is even smaller fonts that I have to zoom in to 150%. "Hey Alex..."
Well, the fonts on the home page is okay, but still very small compared to other social media sites. Too much empty space on the page for my taste. I always browse Goodreads at 150% because of this.
The font here in comments is very difficult to read.
Why would you do that to us? It's blurry and my eyes hurt.
The font really isn't easier to my eyes than the old one was. I honestly don't care for the font, but I appreciate the cleaner look of my feed. Please change the font - people with vision problems don't find it as easy to read as folks with an OK vision.
This new font is killing my eyes! Who is the crazy that said it's EASIER on the eye. Yes, it looks "pretty" but the readability is terrible!
Very good and even my favorite color :) Thanks
About the font size, they are looking great on quotations, but not on the update screen, it's much smaller than on the Quotes.Or at least here, I'm using Opera.
ReadingDiva wrote: "The font really isn't easier to my eyes than the old one was. I honestly don't care for the font, but I appreciate the cleaner look of my feed. Please change the font - people with vision problems ..."I've OK vision and even I have problems reading it....
The font's blurry and cramped, which makes it very hard to read IMO and the blue doesn't help either....
Joe wrote: "It looks better in IE, but on Firefox it's very hard to read. Like Alexandra said, you really have to zoom in to see entire letters."I see them okay, but even now in this comment window it's too small. That's 90% of the reason why I don't really hang out here that much. It's always a pain to read anything.
I think the layout is more difficult to read. The font is maybe not dark enough? Or too small? Still needs some work :)
Marita wrote: "Alexandra wrote: "Huge titles, tiny text, total chaos in fonts"
I agree, horrible huge titles, and tiny blurred text. So unpleasant to read. Makes me not want to go on the site as regularly as I ..."
Haha yes I reloaded the page 10 times too
Joe wrote: "Emily wrote: "Joe wrote: "It looks terrible. About 10% of all the letters are just missing on my screen."Hey Joe - where are you seeing letters missing? Would it be possible for you to send us a ..."
Thanks so much!
And to be honest I have to squint my eyes to read it because when I don't it looks a little blurry (and no, not because I have glasses).
I liked the old font better.