FontLab 8 supports every current color OpenType format and ships with Python 3.11 scripting and the TypeRig library. This post covers the color workflow and scripting capabilities from the “Color” and “Scripts & extensions” chapters of the What’s New documentation.
The hardest part of designing a typeface isn’t drawing — it’s deciding. Which letterforms? How wide? How much contrast? Gunnlaugur SE Briem’s notes on decisions and modules offer two complementary approaches: systematic variation and comparison, and learning from masterpieces.
FontLab 8.2 lands with around 250 changes on top of 8.0 — a consolidation release that touches every corner of the app, from the Sketchboard to the export dialog. Drawing tools get smoother handles and snappier strokes; kerning learns to read right-to-left; the COLR format reaches v1; Python moves to 3.11; and a quietly redesigned UI makes large fonts feel lighter to work with. Free for FontLab 8 owners.
Variable fonts pack an entire type family into one file, letting users slide continuously between weights, widths, and other axes rather than jumping between predetermined styles. FontLab 8 treats variable font creation as a first-class workflow, not a post-production step. Here’s what the “Families & variation” chapter of the What’s New documentation covers.
Gunnlaugur SE Briem taught type design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1996. His notes from that course — precise, practical, free of mystification — have been republished with permission on the FontLab documentation site. Here is a distillation of his opening chapters on why you’d make a font and what the basics actually require.