Comment 17 for bug 677134

As myself again: I've been running with 'd' and 'e' over the weekend plus either side of it, I'd like to reserve full judgement for a while longer, but people seem to be to keen to express feedback, so I'll try and give some early indications. Starting with the most painful/blunt feedback first: !

  For (e), worst (most off-putting) character is 'r'; too serify/symmetric/heavy/lost: see the word 'harmoney'
  For (d), worst (most off-putting) character is 'i'; has the slant of a backslash (\), is falling over to the left and kills the cadence: see the words "it" or "Pricing". I think it's just too short to support that amount of loop.

(e) is perhaps easier to read out-of-the-box because it's closer to what we currently ship, but I don't think it really progresses font development or takes it to interesting places. My suspicion is that (d) is actually better in the long run and if it wasn't for the distracting 'i' itself would be pretty much ready to go. Note that for (d) the loop on the bottom of the lowercase 'l' ell *does* work and fits perfectly, just not for 'i'. A possible solution would be to (just) replace the lowercase 'i' with the one from (b) to solve this. (d) is closer to the 'Ubuntu' feel of the main font, and things like the nice open 'r' and 'f' carry this continuity.

 * 'm' (em): The raised middle stem (bug #677112) on the 'm' fits with the rest of (d) really well from my using it, but could indeed do with being a notch more open (already requested per Mark).

 * 't' (tee): left-hand end of cut-line area looks too heavy - see the word 'applications'

 * '1' (one): needs more definition (bug #685380), perhaps a serif at the bottom, or more on the downward angle even.

All of the rest of my notes so far relate equally to both. So for the moment I can save those and file them separately, or in the longer-run as required.