What are Variable Fonts?
Variable Font aka Variable Font. This new type of font is part of an effort to upgrade to OpenType, the most radical cross-platform standard for computer fonts established by Adobe and Microsoft since 1996. OpenType is still being used for most fonts. digital letters we are using. Meanwhile, variable fonts are designed to best adapt to the OpenType standard and create a consistent responsive design experience across today's websites and browsers.
Jointly developed by four of the most influential technology companies — Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe — these font files contain a large amount of additional data, compared to your average OpenType font.
A variable font can contain the font's entire font or separate glyphs with up to 64,000 axes of variation, including weight, width, italics, and in some cases, specific styles, such as such as Condensed, Bold,...
So what are variable fonts? Why is it so important?
Most people consider font and typeface to be equivalent, interchangeable things. But to understand variable fonts better, we need to dig a little deeper here.
To understand better, I would like to say this, each type of font on the computer is contained in a separate file. This means that if a designer wants to use different font formats for an application or website, they are forced to download each file one by one (increasing the file size; the application; the loading time of the website, etc.) .
So where to find Variable Fonts?
You can use the built-in variable fonts in Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe Photoshop CC, including:
Acumin Variable Concept
Minion Variable Concept
Myriad Variable Concept
Source Sans Variable
Source Serif Variable
Source Code Variable
Independent type designers are also starting to release their own Variable Fonts. You can also find a beta site, v-fonts.com, which has a growing list of Variable Fonts.
How do I use Variable Fonts?
Here, we will look at how to use variable fonts in Illustrator CC.
The process is really easy. Simply select the Type Tool (T) and drag to create a text frame on the page. Place your cursor in the frame and enter your text.
With either frame selected or type highlighted, choose a variable font from the regular font menu in the Character panel (Window > Type > Character).
Click the small double T icon to the right of the scale menu. When you hover over the icon, you'll see 'Variable Font' appear next to your cursor.
Formatting typefaces to suit your exact purposes can be quite time consuming. So imagine instead being able to make a text bold or italic just by adjusting a slider in Illustrator.
Current variant font technology allows you to do just that. Individual font files act like multiple fonts, allowing you to adjust the boldness, width, and slant of the typeface.
But is changing the font really useful for designers, or is it just fun but doesn't mean anything? Here we take a look at how you can use font changes in Illustrator CC and how you can best apply them in your design work.
What Are Variant Fonts?
A variant font is an OpenType font format that includes new technologies known as OpenType font variants.
Co-developed by four of the most influential technology companies Google, Apple, Microsoft and Adobe, these font files will contain a large amount of extra data, compared to your usual OpenType fonts. .
A variant font can contain an entire set of font glyphs, or individual textures can have up to 64,000 variations, including thickness, width, slant, and, in some cases cases will include specific types including Condensed, Bold,... etc.
Variant fonts, however, are a natural progression for the calligraphy industry, reflecting developments in dynamic web design. Designers are demanding more convenience and interactivity from their design tools, and fonts that you can adjust with a scroll bar or a slider meet this need.
Variant fonts have flexibility and instant results, making it suitable for people who are short on time.
They're also great for 'live' typography adjustments. So if you're showing a client a design on a single screen, you can adjust the formatting of the title in front of their eyes in no time.
How do I find variant fonts?
You can use a limited range of font variations that are pre-installed on Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe Photoshop CC, including:
The concept of the Acumin variant
Minion variant concept
The concept of the variant Myriad
Sans style variation
Serif style variant
Code Source Variations
Independent type designers are also starting to release their own variations of fonts, although most of these are still in prototype form. Check out Gingham, a minimalist sans serif font created by Christoph Koeberlin, or Jabin, a Gothic-based variation by Frida Medrano.
You can also find a beta site, v-fonts.com, which has a growing list of new font variations.
How to use variant fonts?
Here, we will take a look at how to use variant fonts in Illustrator CC.
This process is very easy. Simply select the Type Tool (T) and drag the mouse to create a text frame on the page. Place the cursor in the frame and type your text.
Click to select the whole frame or part of the text, continue to choose a variant font from the normal font menu in the Character panel (Window > Type > Character).
Click the small two T's icon to the right of the font weight menu. When you hover over the icon, you'll see 'Variable Font' appear next to your cursor.
Clicking on this will open a pop-up window with sliders to adjust with three options, as detailed below.
Text boldness
Adjusting this slider makes the text bolder. Depending on the variant font, this can range from an ultra-thin stroke to a very bold or extremely bold stroke.
This is a great option when testing the visual impact of headings or subtitles, allowing you to precisely determine the weight of your text.
Note that increasing the boldness of the font can also increase the overall width of the text, by increasing the size of each character.
Width
To make characters very narrow or wide, adjust the Width slider.
While this has an aesthetic effect on your text, it's also a really handy method for getting rid of single word breaks in a paragraph if you don't want to waste your time. Adjust or align characters manually.
Lean
While misapplying the slant of text in text is often seen as a no-brainer, the Slant slider really offers a variety of slant experiences.
This will give you a professional look at the actual tilt, but having too many options can cause you to apply the wrong tilt.
When should I use variant fonts?
Variant fonts have been designed for display on web pages, and they are supported by the Safari, Chrome, Edge and Firefox browsers. Websites are ideal for variable fonts because they are especially responsive to websites and applications. You can play around with different font variations to see how they will appear online on the Axis-Praxis website.
By storing information about multiple font groups in a single file, variant fonts also provide a space-saving solution for web design.
However, variant fonts also offer an exciting new way of formatting typefaces for print design. Because adjusting such fonts is quick and convenient, it saves time for print designers while they are still working on drafts.
Conclusion: Are variant fonts useless or useful?
For web designers, variant fonts represent an exciting evolution of responsive text decoration. Along with colored fonts, variant fonts allow web designers to be more flexible and creative in their designs, making the text the focal point of the web page rather than just an opaque element. pale required.
For print designers, the assessment remains whether variant fonts are useful enough to replace manual text formatting work. Until so many variant fonts are made available in Adobe's software, it seems unlikely that they will replace the standard methods of formatting typefaces for most designers.