Samsung developed its own font called SamsungOne

Bespoke typefaces have become all the rage in Silicon Valley. Google has its Roboto font family that’s become a cornerstone of the identity of many of their Material Design applications. Apple has its custom-made San Francisco, which recently became the default typeface across the entire Apple family of devices. And while Microsoft can’t take credit for developing Segoe, the company has made the font its own, using it as a core part of the Microsoft, Windows, and Office branding.

For everything from smartphones to TVs and refrigerators

Now, Samsung is joining in, with the unveiling of the SamsungOne font, a typeface that hopes to help give a consistent and universal visual identity to the wide range of Samsung products. SamsungOne was designed to be used across Samsung’s diverse device portfolio, with a focus on legibility for everything from smaller devices like smartphones to larger connected TVs or refrigerators, as well as Samsung marketing and advertisements. In line with the international nature of the technology industry, font family supports 400 different languages through over 25,000 characters.

The SamsungOne font appears to resemble more the original Android font, Droid Sans, with more embellishments on the letterforms that the newer Roboto font. Compared to Roboto, it noticeably has a flourish on the bottom of the "l," and less pronounced curves on letters like "c," "s," and "a," and an overall taller, thinner aesthetic. Head to head, Roboto feels like a more substantial design, with the SamsungOne characters feeling weaker and anemic in comparison, as seen below.

"Built-in expertise and know-how"

Samsung hopes that SamsungOne will manage to be "Human + Balanced + Ownable + Distinctive + Universal + Scalable + Expert + Durable," which is a lot of things for a single typeface to accomplish. But even if it fails to convey it's "Built-in expertise and know-how," SamsungOne will at the very least continue to help cement Samsung's own separate visual identity away from Google's stock Android experience.

No time table was given as to when users can expect to see SamsungOne in products, but with the rumored upcoming release of the Galaxy Note 7, the font’s product introduction may be just around the corner.