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For a very long time we’ve been chasing the ‘one layout to rule them all’ in our designs. We’ve bootstrapped, gridded, and patterned our way to a layout that works with every piece of content. Components that behave with all...
The core idea of responsive typography is that the main elements of typographic structure and hierarchy should scale based on viewport size. Small screens can have more subtle size or weight distinctions and still convey hierarchy. Reading comfort is best...
This week I decided to do something a little different. I’ve had these variable fonts from Monotype for a few weeks now and wanted to do some experiments with them to show them off a bit. So I’ve created something...
Returning this week is the third issue in our exploration of OpenType features on the web. Two weeks back we explored ligatures, and numeral styles the week before. This time we’ll have a look at another way of using...
One of the key objectives in the creation of the variable font specification was interoperability with static fonts, no matter where they’re used. If accomplished, that would mean on the web that a variable font with a weight axis and...
Continuing on from last week’s introduction to OpenType features, this issue we’re going to take a look at ligatures. A ligature can be described as when two or more individual letterforms or symbols are combined to form a single glyph...
Over the past few months we’ve looked at a lot of different typographic techniques, approaches, and technologies. Before we get into the next big technical series (it’s high time we talk about font loading performance and management), I wanted to...
Jumping off from last week’s theme of intentionally challenging the reader with different kinds of typographic layout ideas, I thought it might be interesting to look at one of Jen Simmons’ topics of late: writing modes. Changing the direction...
Last week I wrote about the idea of friction in design, sparked by a wonderful quote from Nina Stössinger. I’m pleased that a few of you have commented about it resonating with you as well. While in the last issue I...
A couple months back I was preparing to speak at Web Directions Design in Melbourne and a tweet came across my timeline from type designer and all-around smarty Nina Stössinger that, quite literally, stopped me in my tracks. I knew...
Now that we’ve covered the basics of what variable fonts are, how to implement them, and a bit more about what we can do with them to improve the reading experience, let’s focus on some fun. While the registered axes...
Last week I finally introduced you to variable fonts a bit more formally. I covered four out of the five registered axes and bunch about how to implement them. This week I want to dig into the fifth registered axis...