In many languages and scripts, some glyphs are a combination of others, such as accented letters: é is the pairing of e with the diacritic “acute” on top.

When designing fonts, instead of copy-pasting the contours of both e and the acute accent into é, the designer adds an anchor on the top of e and below the acute accent, where both should be connected or anchored to each other. Thus, both elements are “called” to form the character é, which becomes its components.

The angle (or slant) is what we can observe on italic-style letterforms. We say the vertical stems are stretched and lean to the right at a certain angle.

In the same typeface family, the degree of the italic angle changes from one weight to another. Usually, italic stems are more upright as the weight gets bolder. That degree can also differ from one glyph to another in the same weight.

In Latin script, we speak of a “diagonal,” “tilted” or “oblique” axis when we refer to the shapes of letters in a typeface that have some contrast.

In calligraphy (when using a broad nib pen), the axis of the stroke is defined by the angle at which the pen is held, from which a contrast between thin and thick parts is formed. The axis should be kept the same (or very similar) for a consistent construction on all glyphs.

In Variable Fonts, the axis refers to the area where variations of a typeface can be made between styles, called “masters.” For an axis to be functional, it needs:

• two masters minimum at its extremes;
• compatible contours of every related glyph.

There can be a weight axis (e.g., from a Light to a Bold master), a width axis (e.g., from a Condensed to an Extended master), or many more!

The user can choose precisely which variation is needed by navigating through the axis.

The concept of balance is fundamental in typeface design. With many different shapes (letters, figures, symbols, etc.) that have to be combined to create a more complex group (words, sentences), a certain level of training and expertise is required to achieve a harmonious balance of the whole set.

A good balance allows a comfortable reading experience.

In type design, Bézier curves are used to draw contours on digital applications with vectors drawn by placing points and handles. This technology allows us to rasterize digital shapes and keep their quality.

HISTORY

Bézier curve technology was developed by French mathematician and physicist Paul de Casteljau in 1959. Working at that time for the automobile brand Citroën, de Casteljau developed a mathematical formula to improve the design process of car bodies. French engineer Pierre Bézier used the same technology in 1962 for Renault (another automobile brand) to create shapes using digital tools. It wasn’t until 1985, when Citroën lifted its industrial secrecy clause, that de Casteljau could speak about his work and Pierre Bézier was able to publicly mention the origins of his own.

In 1982, Bézier curves were used by the American computer scientist John Warnock to develop a technology for describing and positioning digital shapes and contours for the company that he co-founded with Charles Geschke: Adobe Systems.

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There are two types of Bézier curves: cubic and quadratic.

A cubic Bézier curve section requires the positioning of four points (two points and two handles), creating three sections between each point. The overall shape resembles a cubic shape, hence the name. Postscript font formats use cubic curves.

Quadratic curves are formed by three points (two points and one control point) to create a curve, with two sections cut halfway through to determine where the curve turns to the other point. TrueType font formats use quadratic curves.

In the Chinese Hanzi script, the center space (or optical core, 中宫 in Chinese) corresponds to the central area of a character, similar in Latin to the area between the x-height and the baseline. This area can differ from style to style, but it has to be visually constant for all characters in a typeface.

A text typeface with a bigger center space has its legibility improved for small sizes.

It is important to manage the coherence (or consistency) of the shapes of all glyphs in a typeface to create a unified set. This includes the shape of the serifs, thickness of the strokes, proportions with one another, spacing, etc.

A Variable Fonts is made of two or more master files, with compatible contours of all glyphs across all masters. For each glyph, compatibility consists of:

• having the same number of contours and points;
• contours that have the same direction with the exact position of the starting point;
• and are set in the same order.

That way, there can be a fluid transformation (called “interpolations”) between every master of the Variable Font.

Many shapes in digital font files are identically repeated in multiple glyphs. These can be turned into components. Components are parts designed that exist as individual glyphs (such as the diacritic “acute”) and can be borrowed to form other glyphs (like in é).

Using components instead of copy-pasting contours gives a better control of consistency and reduces the size of the final font file.

Letters, characters and other glyphs of every script are written with a specific number of strokes of a particular shape. This is the glyph construction.

This construction went through multiple evolutions over time and at different pace for each script, being influenced by various circumstances (tools in use, style preferences, needs, etc.).

The contour is the line (or outline) shaping a glyph, in both digital type design and analog practice.

Companies, brands, institutions and so on can find great benefits in using and/or owning a custom-made typeface with a design that fits their voice. Unlike retail typefaces, they can be used as an important and exclusive element of the visual identity and be fully suited to their needs.

A custom typeface costs more at first than a license of an existing retail one (the client can have a design for their exclusive use instead of a retail design that may be used by many others). Still, it can be financially and strategically more interesting, and profitable than licensing retail typefaces in the long run. The pros and cons between these choices are worth the effort of comparison and evaluation.

Variable Fonts technology allows users to navigate within or use multiple variations between two or more specific styles (called masters) with high precision and much smaller font files.

When we navigate between masters—in the design space—we are looking at interpolations. The contours and shapes are digitally interpreted from the masters’ data from the Variable Font. Some type design applications (or extensions) can generate previews of what the font can look like beyond the masters, what exists beyond the design space, called extrapolations.

In digital fonts, contours are designed by placing nodes and handles.
Placing them properly is very important to keep the shapes as designed when computers or printers rasterize them.
Besides that, making sure to place extreme points on a contour is just as important to avoid unexpected results.

Handles—also called Bézier Control Point (BCP for short) or off-curve points—are toggles placed by the designer to determine the curvature of a segment. Their length and relative position have rules to be followed to ensure the quality of a contour in any situation once the file is exported and used:

• both handles on the same side of the curve;
• about 1/3 of the length of the curved segment between the handle and its closest point;
• no intersection of handles of the same segment.

When printing technology was primarily based on printing inked metal types on paper, ink could easily spread in the small corners of the characters (in printing, this effect is called bleed), especially at small sizes, weakening their legibility.

One of the best examples of a typeface solving that problem is Bell Centennial, designed by Matthew Carter in 1975 for the US telephone company AT&T which needed a typeface for their phone books (printed on a thin and porous paper). This typeface has inner corners to go into the letterforms’ usual contours, called ink traps.

In digital typeface design, designers still use ink traps, especially for typefaces intended for small sizes (on printed and/or digital media), but also as design features (which can go pretty wild!).

Setting the kerning, or defining the kerning values, is about adjusting the distance between pairs of glyphs if the space between them looks too loose, too tight, or if some parts overlap with each other with their default spacing.

Once a kerning value has been set for a pair of glyphs, those values can be repeated on every other pair with identical or similar shapes (e.g., V + A, W + A).
Kerning can be set even with already published fonts in most applications (useful in justified texts), but great typefaces usually have these already fixed.

A layout is about the composition of graphic elements such as text blocks, titles, pagination, white spaces, images, etc, to create an aesthetic and functional combination.

A line of text that is too long or too short affects its readability.
Depending on the script and/or the document, there is an average number of words or characters for a comfortable reading.

In English, a “good” line length average is between 10 to 15 words.

For a Variable Font file to work correctly, it requires a minimum of two font files called masters, in which the glyphs need to be designed with:

• the same number of nodes and anchors;
• the same number of contours;
• in the same order and the same direction; so that interpolations or instances in between the masters can be calculated and displayed properly.

Masters can set up various types of axes (or design ranges) such as weight, optical size, slant angle, etc.
When there are multiple axes in a Variable Font, it is a Multiple Masters font.

When drawing characters in type design applications, contours are created by positioning a succession of nodes (or points), just like vector contours in most design applications.

The points of a straight line are nodes. Those on curved segments are on-curve points. Handles with each on-curve point are off-curve points (also control points) to control the curvature of the segment.

The shapes used to form the words and texts we read are seen by our eyes. And our eyes and brain are organs that don’t rely on geometry, rulers, and compasses to ‘read’ the world.

Even if they are geometrically aligned, some shapes may look uneven and need to be optically adjusted to appear consistent. In type design, we talk about optical corrections.

When a typeface is intended to be used at some specific sizes only (large on billboards or small in printed books), some details can be optimized for each situation, resulting in optical size styles such as Text, Caption, Titling, or Display.

For text styles, aspects such as lower contrast and simpler details have been proven more efficient for reading small texts (especially if they are printed on rough surfaces), while display styles can carry elaborate details as they are seen in larger sizes.

When designing characters in type design applications, the contours of two shapes can be overlapped on top of each other to form more complex shapes (letter E can be split into several segments) or to create a counter like in letter O, with a larger contour and smaller one inside.

These two effects are controlled by changing the contours’ relative direction.

The overshoot of a glyph is the part that goes slightly beyond the height of its fellow letters to achieve an optical evenness, such as rounded letters compared to square ones.

See Optical Corrections for more details.

The contrast is the relationship between a glyph’s thick and thin parts.

The thickness variation in a stroke comes originally from handwriting, as a result of the tool’s reaction to the medium in combination with how it is held and the writer’s movements.
Nowadays, in Latin type design, we speak of a vertical contrast when the vertical parts are thicker than the horizontal ones, it is its “natural” contrast. And the opposite is known as a reversed or inverted contrast.

But these concepts only apply to scripts that evolved using tools and a medium that creates such contrast “naturally”, which is not universal for all. For example, the Hebrew script’s contrast would naturally be distributed the other way around.

Latin letters a and g can be represented with two different constructions:

• single storey, for modern and/or geometric styles;
• double storey, for traditional and/or classical styles.

In some typefaces, both constructions are available, as designers feel that some users prefer one over the other.

The letter g can also be designed with a half storey construction, often seen in Scandinavian designs as a legacy from Danish street signs.

Spacing is about managing the values of a glyph’s side bearings (or the distance between its most left and right side edge to the side of the bounding box), which influences the distance between each glyph combination.

Good spacing is just as important as the design of glyphs themselves, as the combination of both influences the quality of a typeface.

A specimen is a visual sample document published by type foundries that showcases a typeface, its glyph set, text settings in different sizes, Opentype features, etc.
A collection of specimens of different typefaces bound together is called a typeface catalog.

In any writing system, typefaces exist in an infinite number and variety of styles. They are influenced by many factors, such as technology, tools, necessity, and trends. But some of them are (or can be) grouped into categories for their similarities, into classification systems (sans serif, serif, humanist or geometric, etc.).

In the Latin script, we also identify Roman (or upright) and Italic as two ‘companion’ styles of the same typeface style.

A template serves as a model for typography and typesetting. Like a reference guideline, it helps with the composition of the elements in a page (images, texts, spaces, grids, etc.), printed or on screen, to create a coherent and consistent document with specific design characteristics.

DESCRIPTION

A Variable Font file contains data of an entire typeface family and allows an unlimited amount of style variations defined by the designer.

HISTORY

Variable Fonts started with a technology created by Apple (TrueType GX for QuickDraw GX), from which Adobe, Google, and Microsoft joined in to develop it into OpenType Variable Fonts, announced in 2016. Today, Variable fonts are the go-to font format (for typefaces available in such format) for digital media, especially when there are animated texts.

BENEFITS

Unlike static fonts (in which one font file contains the data of a single style), one Variable Font file contains as many variations as possible between two or more master files of a typeface. Rather than searching for the right file for the right style within a typeface family, the user can install one Variable Font file of a typeface, adjust the style to what is desired and have the design application automatically generate the result or have an optimized variation to the environment whenever it changes (responsive to the screen format).

Vectors are digital contours drawn using vector graphics based on Bézier curve technology.

Type design applications rely on the same technology to create the shapes of glyphs.