4 min read
How we chose Newsreader as the default Folio typeface
Eight serif families tested across four devices. Three factors picked Newsreader as default: high x-height, distinct similar letters, and screen-first design.
TypographyNewsreaderDesign
Folio ships with four serif fonts available: Bookerly clone, Newsreader, EB Garamond, and Source Serif. The default is Newsreader. Here is how we got there.
The constraint
Modern e-ink renders typography better than cheap tablets, but worse than monitors. The ink is sharp (300 DPI on Paperwhite 5), but contrast drops in low-light conditions. The font has to work across that range.
Editorial reading also asks for average text density. Bookerly (Amazon's default) is designed for fiction, with low x-height and a "literary" rhythm. For technical articles or analytical essays, it feels forced.
The candidates
We tested eight serif families across four devices (Paperwhite 5, Oasis 9, Scribe, and the 2022 base Kindle) and three article types (literary essay, technical analysis, investigative reporting):
- Bookerly clone: good default, but designed for long-form books, gets monotonous in short articles.
- EB Garamond: classic, elegant, prose rhythm. Excellent for fiction; heavy for analysis.
- Source Serif: modern proportions from Adobe. Good in technical analysis, feels cold in prose.
- Newsreader: variable, with high x-height, distinct shapes between similar letters (l, I, 1). Designed for small screens.
- Charter, PT Serif, Lora, Cardo: tested and discarded for various reasons (weight, missing variants, hinting issues on e-ink).
Why Newsreader won
Three factors decided:
1. High x-height. Lowercase letters take up more proportional height. On a small screen, that means text fills the reading line better and fatigues the eyes less.
2. Distinction between similar letters. Lowercase l, uppercase I, and numeric 1 are visibly different. For editorial reading where proper nouns, years and numbers matter, that means cleaner reading.
3. Designed for screens. Newsreader came out of Production Type in 2019, funded by Google Fonts, specifically for digital reading of long-form text. The competitors (Source Serif, EB Garamond) were originally designed for print.
User choice
We kept all four fonts available because someone who reads fiction may prefer EB Garamond, and someone who reads technical analysis may prefer Source Serif. Newsreader is the default; any other font in the list can be enabled in settings.
Font setting lives at Settings, Typography. Every EPUB generated after the change ships with the new font. Older ones stay as they were.