Signed distance fields (SDF) is very cool and easy for great text rendering. I've been on and off working on a text based graphics engine in Common Lisp using SDF to get smooth text at any size and effects like glowing. There was a post here a few months ago on some excellent ray marching lighting effects (soft shadows) using SDF for text as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24569542
