Apple, Google, Microsoft and Adobe are Developing a New Type of Font read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/1028-apple-google-microsoft-and-adobe-are-developing-a-new-type-of-font

Apple, Google, Microsoft and Adobe are trying to revolutionize digital typography. It's called a variable font.

The new standard is part of an update to OpenType, the most advanced cross-platform standard for scalable computer fonts, which was created by Adobe and Microsoft back in 1996 and which is still used for the vast majority of modern digital fonts.

[Photo: courtesy Erik van Blokland]

For most people, the words font and typeface are interchangeable, and that's mostly okay. On computers, each of these different fonts is essentially a totally different file, which means that if a designer wants to use multiple weights of a single typeface in their app or website, they need to have their users download each one. That increases app file sizes and web load times—so right now, most designers don't include multiple fonts from a single typeface in their designs.

"A variable font is a single font that works like multiple fonts," explains Tim Brown, head of typography for Adobe. Variable font lead to faster, better websites; smaller app sizes; more flexible typography; and richer typographical palettes."

[Photo: courtesy Erik van Blokland]

Existing OpenType fonts are what are called outline fonts. Inside the file, each letterform is defined as a mathematical series of lines and curves, which your computer draws on screen in real time.

For variable fonts to take off, though, it will require more than just Google, Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft's pledge to agree on the standard, though. Those companies will need to implement variable font support into all of their products. Meanwhile, there are no real variable fonts yet, so type designers will need to create them, with tools that have yet to be developed. All of this will take time.

 

Read complete details of variable fonts on “fastcodesign” blog