Arphic has a sans-serif typeface that kills 蘭亭黑 (and YaHei)

[Hofmann]

...IMO. 晶熙黑體. They use it all over their site now. A lot of sans-serifs have come out since 蘭亭黑, but this was the first one I really liked. Apparently the designer of 晶熙黑, 牟曉君, also worked on Meiryo, the Japanese UI font in Windows 6-8.

 

(For the uninitiated, Microsoft uses a slightly modified version of 蘭亭黑 called YaHei. Basically the vertical strokes on YaHei's rectangles extend past the bottom horizontal stroke even when it isn't on the bottom of the character, and the glyphs fill their frame more)

 

Anyway, I like 晶熙黑 more because

• Spacing of strokes and components is better. 蘭亭黑 looks too crowded in general, like in 輕. 蘭亭黑 puts 車 and 巠 too close. The counter in 夕 in 名 is too squished compared to 口. Also stuff like the strokes inside 四 and 酒.
• The angles at which strokes are terminated are better. I prefer straight terminations to the concave ones in 蘭亭黑.
• It looks cleaner because there aren't as many small gaps that complicate how the character looks, like the dots in 旁. This might have something to do with standard forms they might have to adhere to.
• Characters are better balanced in general, like 應, where 蘭亭黑's third stroke is too long.
• 蘭亭黑's stroke thickness compensation or whatever is too exaggerated, like in 二 and 人. The first strokes are too thick.
• 蘭亭黑's hooks are too big. They often threaten to touch other things next to them, like in 而 and 也, which hurts legibility. I also don't like how they get thicker at the end.
• 蘭亭黑's curves are too soft in some cases, like the 㔾 in 蜷, where the structure of the component is more vague. Big hooks don't help either.
• Since a lot of strokes in sans-serif are either vertical or horizontal, there shouldn't be too many that are almost either. There aren't as many almost-vertical parts in 晶熙黑, like the sides of 興 or the vertical part of the first stroke of 也.
• Overall it looks more "normal" to me, where 蘭亭黑 looks affected.

 

Not that 蘭亭黑 is bad. I prefer it over 方正悠黑, 漢儀旗黑, the Noto Sans series (although they're free), and Apple's 蘋方.

 

For now, the only thing I don't like about it is sometimes 丿 look weird, like in the penultimate stroke of 取 and 文.

[mikelove]

Yikes, just when I thought I had a handle on all of the other new 黑体s. Though this one seems to currently be Big5+HKSCS only so a no-go for people interested in 简体字.

 

Any thoughts on which current 黑体 has the best balance of aesthetics versus not-horribly-confusing-people-learning-Chinese-about-what-characters-are-supposed-to-look-like? 

[Hofmann]

? It seems they have at least the demibold weight in GB*. Edit: Actually some of the 簡體字 aren't executed very well, like 筝. 蘭亭黑 does them better, probably because it's their primary market. Edit again: 筝 doesn't look as stupid in the Japanese font. wtf

 

I don't know. 蘭亭黑 is really good, except the above.