Proper weight instance progression for a multiple master

Hello everybody,

I just want to know if there are articles, or at least discussions, where i can find solutions for a proper instance weight progression for a multiple master font.
Now i'm tryin to use impallari progression, but...Well, i don't understand so much how to use it :pensive:  

Thanks a lot

Comments

  • Chris LozosChris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    edited February 2017
    There was a discussion about this a few months back.  It also included Lucas's method. http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/23208/#Comment_23208
  • Abraham, I think the plot with the stem widths lined up is a bit misleading. One of the big reasons why the question of weight progression is non-trivial is because for heavy weights, the size of counters and spaces becomes the dominant visual characteristic. If your heaviest weights are placed relatively far apart, the counters will seemingly collapse abruptly in the last weight.
  • FWIW, I completely agree with both of you. I'm certainly not professing to understand this perfectly and very much respect your point of view based on experience. So, thanks for your feedback on my analysis! (BTW, I hold both @PabloImpallari and @Lucas de Groot and their expertise in the field in the highest regards.) 

    Design trade-offs will likely need to be made to make a specific interpolated weight work right. Weight progressions may not (ever?) fall precisely on any given curve. Still, I think it would be interesting to see how some of the "industrial strength" super families have decided to progress their weights and (perhaps unanswerably) why. This would probably be the most insightful study of all. But who has time for that kind of thing, right?

    I might just do this myself. Any recommendations on respected font super families with 5+ weights?
  • Just a quick note: in an OpenType variable font, you can use an 'avar' table to tweak a weight progression when interpolating between two "masters".
  • PabloImpallariPabloImpallari Posts: 777
    edited February 2017
    @Abraham Lee I love when people keep thinking about a problem, make exploration and find new ideas and solution. This inverted ogee does make a lot on sense.
    It will be nice to have it displayed in the calculator, so I will try to add it when I have time (next month or so). I will call it the "Abraham" curve, since CSS means a lot of other things.
  • AbrahamLeeAbrahamLee Posts: 262
    edited February 2017
    @Abraham Lee I love when people keep thinking about a problem, make exploration and find new ideas and solution. This inverted ogee does make a lot on sense.
    It will be nice to have it displayed in the calculator, so I will try to add it when I have time (next month or so). I will call it the "Abraham" curve, since CSS means a lot of other things.
    Ha! Sounds good.

    FYI, what I found from the CSS data is that it's really a weighted Ogee that pushes it *slightly* towards the linear progression, like this:

    Ogee(x) = Linear(x)*(1-t^1.25) + Power(x)*(t^1.25)

    where t = (x - xmin)/(xmax-xmin)

    Lots of ways to formulate it!
Sign In or Register to comment.