News, technical writing, and updates from FontLab.https://blog.fontlab.com/ Fontlab Ltd.en Fri, 08 May 2026 13:20:59 -0000 Fri, 08 May 2026 13:20:59 -0000 1440 MkDocs RSS plugin - v1.19.0 https://i.fontlab.com/menu/fontlab-logo.svg https://blog.fontlab.com/ FontLab cjk file-size indic mobile opentype smartwatch variable-fonts web <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/variable-fonts-file-size-1.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>The fashionable take is that variable fonts are not about file size. The fashionable take is wrong, or at least wrong by half.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/05/13/variable-fonts-file-size/ Fri, 08 May 2026 11:54:27 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/05/13/variable-fonts-file-size/ FontLab color-fonts colrv1 history opentype-svg web <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/color-font-wars-ten-years-on-1.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>In 2013, four companies each decided the same thing: OpenType needed color. They each decided it differently.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/01/20/color-font-wars-ten-years-on/ Fri, 08 May 2026 11:54:27 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/01/20/color-font-wars-ten-years-on/ Vexy Lines art history pointillism vexy-lines <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/seurat-and-the-220000-dots-1.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>Georges Seurat spent two years applying roughly 220,000 dots to a canvas. The painting works because the dots don’t blend on the canvas. They blend in your eye.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/19/seurat-and-the-220000-dots/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:48:58 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/19/seurat-and-the-220000-dots/ Vexy Lines engraving history illustration vexy-lines <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/five-centuries-of-line-3.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>A line can carry tone, texture, shadow, and emotion — and never once pretend to be a photograph. That is the whole argument of five centuries of printmaking, made with a burin, a graver, and eventually a stylus.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/26/five-centuries-of-line/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:48:58 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/26/five-centuries-of-line/ Vexy Lines cartography data-visualization history vexy-lines <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/drawing-the-invisible-minard-2.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>A contour line is a lie your map tells you so you can understand the truth. No hill has a line around it. The line is what you draw when the hill refuses to fit on a flat page.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/04/02/drawing-the-invisible-minard/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:48:58 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/04/02/drawing-the-invisible-minard/ Vexy Lines generative history processing vexy-lines <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/from-spirograph-to-fidenza-2.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>The generative line has a genealogy. It runs from a physics lecture in 1815 through a children’s toy in 1965 and a university lab in 2001, and it ends — so far — with an algorithm that sold for five million dollars.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/04/16/from-spirograph-to-fidenza/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:48:58 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/04/16/from-spirograph-to-fidenza/ FontLab fontlab-8 opentype roboto variable-fonts <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/roboto-flex-thirteen-axes-2.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>Christian Robertson drew Roboto in 2011 for Android. Ten years later, David Berlow’s team turned it into something with thirteen knobs.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/05/06/roboto-flex-thirteen-axes/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/05/06/roboto-flex-thirteen-axes/ FontLab fontlab-8 opentype variable-fonts <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/fvar-avar-hvar-the-tables-that-hold-it-together-2.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>A variable font isn’t a new file format. It’s an OpenType file with a few extra tables nailed on, and once you know what each one does, the whole thing stops being magic.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/05/20/fvar-avar-hvar-the-tables-that-hold-it-together/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/05/20/fvar-avar-hvar-the-tables-that-hold-it-together/ FontLab fontlab-8 history optical-sizing variable-fonts <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/optical-sizings-lost-century-2.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>William Caslon knew something in 1720 that digital type spent a century forgetting: a six-point letter is not a twelve-point letter made smaller.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/05/27/optical-sizings-lost-century/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/05/27/optical-sizings-lost-century/ FontLab fontlab-8 history multiple-master variable-fonts <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/from-multiple-master-to-variable-2.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>Variable fonts are not new. They are the third attempt at the same idea, by mostly the same engineers, after twenty-five years of finding out what didn’t work.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/06/03/from-multiple-master-to-variable/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/06/03/from-multiple-master-to-variable/ FontLab history web-fonts woff woff2 <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/woff-and-the-emmy-nobody-expected-1.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>In 2021 the Television Academy gave the W3C a Technology &amp; Engineering Emmy for font standardisation on the web. Among the recipients was the CEO of FontLab Ltd — a small, deeply satisfying acknowledgement that the work to make type travel cleanly across browsers, operating systems, and broadcast pipelines mattered enough to be celebrated alongside cinematography and sound design.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/06/10/woff-and-the-emmy-nobody-expected/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/06/10/woff-and-the-emmy-nobody-expected/ FontLab color-fonts emoji history opentype <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/emoji-is-older-than-you-think-1.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>The story everyone tells is that Shigetaka Kurita designed emoji at NTT Docomo in 1999. It is a good story. It is also wrong.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/06/17/emoji-is-older-than-you-think/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/06/17/emoji-is-older-than-you-think/ FontLab bezier fontlab-8 geometry history opentype <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/bezier-vs-de-casteljau-1.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>In 1958, Paul de Casteljau at Citroën worked out the mathematics of the curves we now draw with every day. A few years later Pierre Bézier at Renault arrived at the same idea independently and published it in 1962.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/07/01/bezier-vs-de-casteljau/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/07/01/bezier-vs-de-casteljau/ FontLab cjk fontlab-8 history typography <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/mingti-songti-minchotai-same-thing-1.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>Three names. One style. A 19th-century missionary print shop at the centre of all of them.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/07/08/mingti-songti-minchotai-same-thing/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/07/08/mingti-songti-minchotai-same-thing/ FontLab cjk fontlab-8 history japanese typography <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/hiragino-drawn-by-a-tiny-tokyo-studio-2.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>The Japanese font on your iPhone has been drawn since 1989 by a studio of three people.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/07/29/hiragino-drawn-by-a-tiny-tokyo-studio/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/07/29/hiragino-drawn-by-a-tiny-tokyo-studio/ FontLab cjk fontlab-8 japanese mincho typography <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/a1-mincho-behind-shinkais-atmosphere-2.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>One of Morisawa’s oldest typefaces made it into <em>Your Name</em> because it was imperfect in exactly the right way.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/08/05/a1-mincho-behind-shinkais-atmosphere/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/08/05/a1-mincho-behind-shinkais-atmosphere/ FontLab cjk fontlab-8 japanese typography <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/tazugane-gothic-monotype-first-japanese-1.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>The problem with Japanese set in Helvetica has annoyed transit designers for fifty years. In January 2017, Akira Kobayashi did something about it.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/09/16/tazugane-gothic-monotype-first-japanese/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/09/16/tazugane-gothic-monotype-first-japanese/ FontLab cjk fontlab-8 opentype source-han <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/source-han-sans-the-opentype-ceiling-3.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>Seven weights. Four regional variants. 65,535 glyphs each — the maximum an OpenType font can hold. Adobe and Google hit the ceiling on purpose.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/09/30/source-han-sans-the-opentype-ceiling/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/09/30/source-han-sans-the-opentype-ceiling/ FontLab cjk fontlab-8 taiwanese typography <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/justfont-and-taiwans-crowdfunded-typeface-1.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>NT$1.5 million in eighty minutes. NT$26 million in the end. A typeface named after a tea proved that East Asian type had an audience willing to pay for it.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/10/21/justfont-and-taiwans-crowdfunded-typeface/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/10/21/justfont-and-taiwans-crowdfunded-typeface/ FontLab books fontlab-8 hangul korean typography <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/the-fontlab-book-in-korean-1.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>Most font editors grew up thinking about Latin. In April 2025, a Korean designer published the book that translates FontLab into Hangul terms.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/11/18/the-fontlab-book-in-korean/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/11/18/the-fontlab-book-in-korean/ FontLab fontlab-8 hangul history korean <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/hangul-invented-1443-lost-found-in-a-coat-3.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>King Sejong personally invented the Korean alphabet in 1443. Its instruction manual was lost for four centuries, then carried through the Korean War inside a man’s coat.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/11/25/hangul-invented-1443-lost-found-in-a-coat/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/11/25/hangul-invented-1443-lost-found-in-a-coat/ FontLab cjk fontlab-8 korean typography <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/sandoll-the-foundry-behind-your-phone-2.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>If you read Korean on a phone, you are almost certainly reading a Sandoll typeface. That is not an accident — it is four decades of infrastructure work.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/12/09/sandoll-the-foundry-behind-your-phone/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/12/09/sandoll-the-foundry-behind-your-phone/ FontLab fontlab-8 harfbuzz open-source tools <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/the-open-tool-ecosystem-1.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>Most of the world’s text passes through a library most people have never heard of.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2025/12/23/the-open-tool-ecosystem/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2025/12/23/the-open-tool-ecosystem/ FontLab education fontlab-8 schools type-design <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/where-type-designers-are-made-3.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>Six programmes shape almost everyone working in type design in 2026. All six are small. Most are slow by design.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/01/06/where-type-designers-are-made/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/01/06/where-type-designers-are-made/ FontLab color-fonts cpal css font-palette web <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/cpal-and-css-font-palette-3.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>A colour font with one palette is a coloured drawing. A colour font with thirty palettes is a theme system. The difference is <code>CPAL</code>, and most people walk right past it.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/01/27/cpal-and-css-font-palette/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/01/27/cpal-and-css-font-palette/ FontLab animation css performance variable-fonts web <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/animating-font-variation-settings-1.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>Browsers have shipped robust <code>font-variation-settings</code> support since 2018, and animating those axes works the way the rest of CSS animation works. That is a small miracle, and the people who built it deserve a round of applause.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/02/03/animating-font-variation-settings/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/02/03/animating-font-variation-settings/ FontLab fontlab-8 hinting history rendering screens <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/the-four-stack-of-screen-rendering-2.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>Most type designers know their fonts will be rendered differently on macOS and Windows. Fewer know the names of the four pieces of plumbing responsible. The names are worth knowing, because the plumbing shapes everything.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/02/17/the-four-stack-of-screen-rendering/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/02/17/the-four-stack-of-screen-rendering/ FontLab fontlab-8 gpos gsub harfbuzz opentype shaping <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/gsub-gpos-and-harfbuzz-2.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>Every OpenType feature — ligatures, kerning, small caps, Arabic joining forms — runs through two tables and one engine. Most type designers know the features exist. Fewer know what the tables look like from the inside.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/03/gsub-gpos-and-harfbuzz/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/03/gsub-gpos-and-harfbuzz/ Vexy Lines halftone history print vexy-lines <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/halftone-fox-talbot-to-shantytown-1.png">{.illu-thumb }</p> <p>Photography arrived in the 1830s. Printing photographs in newspapers took another fifty years.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/17/halftone-fox-talbot-to-shantytown/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/17/halftone-fox-talbot-to-shantytown/ Vexy Lines dithering graphics history vexy-lines <p><img alt="" src="../media/illu/dithering-ditherpunk-and-bill-atkinson-1.png">{.illu-thumb .illu-index}</p> <p>A one-bit display has no grey. Dithering is the sixty-year argument that it doesn’t need one.</p> https://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/24/dithering-ditherpunk-and-bill-atkinson/ Fri, 08 May 2026 02:34:50 +0000 FontLab Bloghttps://blog.fontlab.com/2026/03/24/dithering-ditherpunk-and-bill-atkinson/