TYPO Labs 2017 | Adam Twardoch | Make your fonts variable

Make your fonts variable. Upgrading existing font projects to OpenType Variations

Thousands of font sources exist today which were designed in FontLab Studio, Glyphs or RoboFont with Superpolator, which makes it relatively easy for font foundries to re-release them as variable OpenType fonts. The OpenType Variations model is conceptually and technically quite similar to TrueType GX, MutatorMath and MultipleMaster, but there are some important differences in detail. In this talk, Adam will talk about those differences and will give tips on how to technically approach the conversion of font sources into variable TTFs and OTFs. He’ll discuss differences in the design space setup, caveats about glyph compatibility and feature variation, challenges regarding predefined instances and backwards-compatibility with existing static font families.