I released GGX88 on March 30, 2010 after being commissioned to design a font for a set-top television streaming box. The client wanted something with Helvetica-like proportions, but I had to adapt the design to suit the technical limitations of the hardware. One of the main challenges was the system’s autohinting, which I couldn’t control directly. To reduce rendering errors at small sizes, I made sure all overshoots were identical, which meant flattening the heights of round letters like O and o. I also loosened the spacing to improve legibility on low-resolution TV screens and simplified some details, such as using a cross-shaped lowercase t in place of a curled form.

The commission was non-exclusive, so the family was released commercially at the same time. It launched with seven weights and italics, though the client only needed Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic for their interface. The rest of the family was made available through normal retail channels.

On October 31, 2024, version 2.1 reorganized the weight names to bring them in line with my other families: Book became Light, Light was renamed Extra-Light, Extra-Light became Thin, and Ultra-Light was relabeled Hairline. GGX88 has since been sold for other user interface projects beyond the original set-top box. The name was intentionally meaningless, chosen to sound technical and neutral, consistent with typefaces designed for functional roles rather than broad branding.