Figma supports variable fonts!

Dave Crossland
Dave Crossland Posts: 1,427
in Miscellaneous News
https://www.figma.com/typography/variable-fonts
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Comments

  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 730
    I was interested to see that this was point 6 of their 8 point announcement.
  • jeremy tribby
    jeremy tribby Posts: 239
    regarding the discussion here on axis labels/steps, looks like you can use a slider or a numeric input for values in figma.

    you can then save those settings as a pre-set style. so if you want "roboto flex width 133," you can save a style with that name and everyone else you share the file with also has that style predefined. if you work at an org, you can save those styles at the org  level. sharing pre-set axis locations by adding them as type styles in figma is a very elegant solution. it will be hard for other, non-web-based apps to match this flexibility. well done to all involved.



  • Marc Oxborrow
    Marc Oxborrow Posts: 220
    edited May 2022
    Looks like a clean, straightforward interface.

    The ability to save variable font settings as styles and share them across an organization isn't limited to web-based apps. Adobe CC libraries can be used to share character- and paragraph-level styles for desktop apps like InDesign, for example.
  • jeremy tribby
    jeremy tribby Posts: 239
    oh interesting! I'm mostly familiar with CC library features from managing assets in illustrator. can you save VF styles (locations) this way? or do you mean it just wouldn't be a big leap for adobe to also include VF axis info, if they can already share paragraph and character styles this way?
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,829
    InDesign does not even consistently maintain axis settings when changing to another font that shares the same axis. I hope Adobe learns to walk before it tries to run, in its variable font support.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,427
    Hopefully we'll see some market competition driven innovation ;) I appreciate Figma's leadership in this arena.
  • KP Mawhood
    KP Mawhood Posts: 295
    Love the way how it snaps to the instance, although I find names like "xopq:109" quite jarring in comparison to "Regular". 



    Eager to see the iterations on how the style naming will work with all the multiple axes (xtra, xopq, ytra, yopq, ytlc, ytuc, ytde, etc)!  ;)

    Thanks @Dave Crossland for the link earlier, makes things very interesting!
    http://variationsguide.typenetwork.com
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,427
    The axis name data in Roboto Flex is being updated, I'll post another thread about Flex soon

  • Fontfruits
    Fontfruits Posts: 51
    Now THIS is good news! I wish more design software/app manufacturers would follow suit. Its about time.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,427
    KP Mawhood said:

    Love the way how it snaps to the instance, although I find names like "xopq:109" quite jarring in comparison to "Regular". 

    Eager to see the iterations on how the style naming will work with all the multiple axes (xtra, xopq, ytra, yopq, ytlc, ytuc, ytde, etc)!  ;)
    The axis names were updated upstream. 

    There have been a few interesting threads about parametric axes in the last few days.

    Thread heads + tree diagrams.

    + https://tweeview.ml/?id=1524772954394955779

    + https://tweeview.ml/?id=1523941379323449345

    Does anyone know a good complete-tree reader for Twitter threads? 

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