Gabriola is a display typeface designed by John Hudson for the

Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

.Microsoft Typography - Gabriola
/ref> It is named after

Gabriola Island Gabriola Island is one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia (BC), Canada. It is about east of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, to which it is linked by a 20-minute ferry service. It has a land area of about and a res ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Versions of Gabriola have been used in

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...

and

Microsoft Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010 (codenamed Office 14) is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with general availability on June 15, 2010, as the succes ...

.Microsoft Typography - Gabriola Details
/ref>

Design

Gabriola was inspired by the calligraphy of Jan van de Velde the Elder. It was developed with advanced

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark ...

features and has been optimized for ClearType rendering to improve legibility on screens. Hudson added a number of

stylistic alternate In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

characters and flourishes, which were grouped thematically by stylistic set into different styles of calligraphy.

Distinguishing features

Easily identifiable and unusual features include: * The flourish of the uppercase Q extends far below the following letter; e.g. Qualifier * The flourish of the lowercase f and both the lowercase j and uppercase J extends far below the previous letter; e.g.

alforja Alforja is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of Baix Camp, in the province of Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain. The main monuments are Sant Miquel church in the town, as well as the shrines of Sant Antoni de Pàdua and Mare de Déu de Puigcerver outs ...

References

External links

The Importance of Gabriola by Larry Larsen
Microsoft typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 2008 Typefaces designed by John Hudson Script typefaces {{digital-typography-stub