The Yale typeface, called “Yale”—designed by School of Art faculty member Matthew Carter for use in the university’s print and digital publications—reflects Yale’s history of typographic excellence and serves as a handsome and ubiquitous element of the university’s contemporary graphic identity. Available free of charge to all members of the university community for Yale-related work only, the Yale typeface supports the work of professional designers, administrators, faculty, and students.
In August 2014, Carter & Cone delivered a new set of Yale typeface files in OpenType format. These files improve upon the legacy PostScript Type 1 fonts that we have used for the past decade. Perhaps the primary advantage of the OpenType format is that it consolidates the Yale typeface family, which originally included nearly 30 fonts and more than 60 other related files, into just four conventionally named font files: YaleNew Roman, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic. All typographic features of the legacy Yale fonts, including old-style figures, ligatures, and Web small caps, are now folded into the four new OpenType files.
Also, please note the following:
- The Yale OpenType font files are fully compatible with Mac, Windows, and Unix systems. The same four files may be used interchangeably across these platforms.
- To avoid font conflicts, the new OpenType Yale typeface family is named “YaleNew.” This permits users to simultaneously run legacy Yale fonts with the new OpenType versions. Indeed, both old and new fonts may be mixed within the same document if necessary.
- Features of the legacy “Design” fonts of the Yale typeface, such as ligatures, old-style figures, and small caps, are now accessed as OpenType features through the Character palette (in Adobe CS applications) or through the Format/Font/Advanced menu (in Microsoft Word). The default presentation of the font—if you choose not to access OpenType features—mirrors the glyph set of the legacy “Admin” fonts. See additional information about OpenType fonts.
- The new Yale fonts incorporate hundreds of additional characters, including an extensive set of diacritical marks for scholarly publishing, true fractions, purpose-made superior and inferior figures, arrows and fists, the Yale logo and shield, and a stylistically matched lowercase Greek alphabet.