Is anyone using parametric axes in projects not connected with GF?

Peter Constable
Peter Constable Posts: 288
in Font Technology
Back in early 2017, David Berlow proposed a number of parametric design axes for use in variable fonts. In work commissioned by Google Fonts, many of the proposed axes were demonstrated in a preliminary release of the Amstelvar font. More recently, Google Fonts has used several of these in the Roboto Flex font, and has documented use of several for fonts in their catalog—see Introducing Parametric Axes.

I'm curious to know whether any of these are being used independently, in projects not connected to Google Fonts? Also, are these being used just for font design- or build-time purposes, or are they being used with the intent of "knobs" that end users / typographers or software algorithms can used to control text styling and layout?

XTRA Parametric Counter Width
XOPQ Parametric Thick Stroke
YOPQ Parametric Thin Stroke
YTAS Parametric Ascender Height
YTDE Parametric Descender Depth
YTFI Parametric Figure Height
YTLC Parametric Lowercase Height
YTUC Parametric Uppercase Height

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Comments

  • George Thomas
    George Thomas Posts: 660
    I'm not currently using them. The one thing I don't like about them is that the axis names are not at all intuitive as to their use for an average end-user. They don't need more confusion. So if I use them as they are now it would be internally only.

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