> The installation ended up being the most devious part of the prank in the end, since it would install on the system it makes it really difficult for anyone to understand why everything looks just that little bit wrong.

This should be made a felony.

> Installing Smelvetica on your system (mac only, at the moment) means that all renderings of Helvetica will use Smelvetica, including websites and applications

Wow, that's evil

I mean it possibly is if it’s not your computer

I am a font snob and was about to leave a strongly worded comment for suggesting this font. Your comment saved me for making a fool of myself.

No worries. I'm engaged to a professional graphic designer. Critique of menu typeface, color palette, layout, and print material is almost ritual that I've had to grow skin for when we eat out.

The XKCD quote was a pretty good indication of the author's intent. I like it and will be using it in place of comic sans for all my inter office punnery. As much as I like graphic designers, the ability to give them an occasional seizure is hard to pass up.

Half the developers on my team wouldn't notice this. Another 45% wouldn't care. The last 5% would lose their hair trying to convince management why customers would hate it and how detrimental to the UX the font is, while consistently seeing it pushed to the next release because feature deadlines.

This font is the kind of stuff that gives me nightmares.

There should be a fixed with version of Smelvetica for programming, where each character is artistically justified within the character cell.

The fun of this font is sharing it with others. Fixed width fonts are mostly used in personal/personalizable settings.

As an artisanal retentive connoisseur of fine fonts, I savor the rough-and-tumble kerning of Smelvetica.

This confirms most of what I have always suspected to be true, regarding font snobs.

It is obviously a joke even without the explanation though. He even quotes XKCD.

I am not up on my xkcd like some of you fine folks.

You know how to read though?

Please don't do this here.