The Future of Fonts in InDesign: Variable Fonts and Color Fonts

Be entertained and enlightened with the joys of variable fonts and color fonts in InDesign and friends. This demo night unlocks the secrets of OpenType variations, aka variable fonts and color fonts. Learn how they work, how you use them, and why they work the way they do. Bonus: some pointers on font creation and font editing.

You will learn:

Font Creation and Editing:

• How fonts are made and modified
• Font drawing compared to Illustrator
• OpenType features are easy
• Variations and color
• Highlights of FontLab VI

Color Fonts:

• What they can and can’t do
• The four different color font formats and where they each work
• The secret of the color fonts (cluster bleep) and its impact
• How Adobe made the best color font bet
• What it means that InDesign color font support is a “Tech Preview” feature
• How color fonts work in InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop today

Variable Fonts:

• What they can and can't do
• How they work in Illustrator and Photoshop today (and hope for in InDesign real soon now)
• Origins of variable fonts (older than you think!)
• Previewing variable fonts: Axis-Praxis, FontView, etc.
• Standard axes: weight, width, optical size and others
• Common other axes: optical size and animations
• Great uses of variations
• Weird, wacky and wonderful uses, too
• Resources: more info, free fonts, and others

Location and Parking

The meeting is being held in the Fireside Room in the Campus Center Building. You can park free in the parking structure. There is only one parking structure on campus. The campus is bordered on the north by Oxnard Street. Enter the campus from the Oxnard and Ethel Street entrance. You will be going south and the parking structure is on your right. You can park free on the second, third or fourth floors of the parking structure. Do not park on the first floor. The Campus Center Building is southwest of the parking structure.

Meeting Notes

By Alvin Takamori

On September 20th, the Los Angeles InDesign User Group celebrated its thirteenth anniversary on the campus of Los Angeles Valley College. After a brief introduction by group manager Alan Bell, there was a short delay to get the technology to make the projector work. Fortunately, our guest presenter for the evening, Thomas Phinney, the CEO of FontLab, was flexible enough to begin his talk without pictures.

His topic for the evening is the latest trends in font development, color and variable fonts. He began with some background on color fonts. As with many new technologies, different companies have pursued their own standards for creating color fonts. The result is four different standards. Microsoft creates vector based color fonts. Google and Apple each have their own standards using bitmap generated fonts. Adobe-Mozilla uses Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to make color fonts. The SVG standard allows the possibility of adding gradients.

The concept of color fonts isn't entirely new. Thomas explained that a font called American Chromatic was designed in the 1850s. It was a multi-color font created by combining separate ink runs.

Returning to modern times and the various color font standards, Thomas elaborated. As mentioned earlier Adobe and Mozilla use SVG format to create their color fonts. Microsoft uses Color Table (COLR) and Color Palette Table (CPAL) Open Type tables to create their color fonts. Google uses the Color Bitmap Data Table (CBDT) with the Color Bitmap Location Table (CBLT) format to embed data for their color fonts. Apple uses the Standard Bitmap Graphics Table (SBIX) to embed data.

The result of the different technologies is that different environments support different color fonts. When it comes to browsers, Microsoft Edge manages to support all four color font standards. Safari does not support CBDT/CBLT. Firefox only supports SVG and COLR/CPAL and Chrome only supports the Google standard of CBDT/CBLT.

Windows 10AE recognizes the SVG and SBIX format color fonts, but Mac OS and iOS only see the SBIX fonts. The COLR/CPAL format works in Windows 8.1 and later.

Turning to applications, the Adobe CC 2018 InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator work with SVG and SBIX formats. and actually Photoshop started working with color fonts in 2017. Quark Xpress also works with SVG and SBIX plus the COLR/CPAL format. Pixelmator, Sketch, and Word 2013 recognize SBIX color fonts.

Needless to say the current environment for color fonts is complicated. One way to simplify matters is to use the application FontLab Pad, which can open all the color font standards and export them as PDF, SVG or PNG files.

Next, Mr. Phinney began a discussion about variable fonts. They were first introduced in the 1990's. Apple created GX graphics and Adobe introduced Master Fonts. The variations were built around dynamic range changes, for instance light to extra bold. Each variable is called a design axis. As an example, a font that has different options from light to bold and condensed to extended has 2 axis.

The issue for the early variable fonts was that a master set of fonts would have to be designed for each axis. In the case of Adobe Master Fonts, combining multiple axis caused the number of masters to multiply. A font with 7 axis would require 128 masters. Apple's GX graphics was much better, requiring only one master for each axis plus one. So a 7 axis font needed only 8 masters.

Naturally the Adobe model was unsustainable and was replaced by Open Type in 2002. The Apple GX model was never widely adapted either and support ended in 2004.

The old method of making variable fonts would name each instance, "this is regular", "this is condensed". Each variable was like a stand alone font. The new generation of variable fonts, using savvy operating systems and apps can produce arbitrary instances of a font from a single master. These instances can be modified by using sliders. To change the weight of a font from light to extra bold, just move a slider. Now you are not restricted to choosing between light, regular, medium, etc. You can select options in between.

Thomas showed us examples of variable fonts on a website called Axis-Praxis. Each font had its' own set of variables. For example, a font called Gingham had one slider to adjust its' weight and another slider to adjust its' width. Another font called Amstelvar had about 15 different variables: weight, width, optical size, x-height, serif height, etc. A font called Zycom is a set of pictographs and moving the sliders would change the shapes or cause the images to move. With so many options, your choices seem infinite. You could push the sliders to extremes that create an illegible font. However, it gives the user greater control of exactly how they want a font to look.

If all this variation is not enough, our presenter showed us how to create and modify fonts using FontLab 6.

After that, we celebrated the 13th anniversary of LAIDUG by giving away a lot of stuff. Actually, we always do that.

Farthest Attendee

The bona fide LAIDUG member who travels the farthest specifically to attend the meeting will receive her or his choice of any one deal at MightyDeals up to $50.00. Mighty Deals offers fonts, templates, apps, e-books, etc. You need to prove to us that you traveled farthest to attend this meeting. Having recently moved to the area from somewhere else won't cut it. Be prepared to show us indication of your current residence—perhaps a driver's license or a utility bill. Decision of the administrators of the Los Angeles InDesign User Group is final. Winner — Leo Postovoit

Raffles

LAIDUG is supported by raffles of donated prizes. No one is required to participate in the raffles. Raffle tickets are: 1 for $3, 2 for $5, 5 for $10, 11 for $20, 24 for $40, 32 for $50 and 65 for $100. All major credit cards are accepted.

Special Raffle Prizes

Dell E5400 14.1" laptop computer with Intel C2D P8400 and 2GB Memory, 160GB Hard Drive, Windows 10. Microsoft authorized refurb sold by Fry's Electronics. Winner — Scott Rovin

Sharper Image Model Car. Winner — Lucy Hawkins

Raffle Prizes and Winners

Adobe Creative Cloud. 12 month subscription. Value $599.88 Winner — Michael Powe

FontLab VI. Winner — Lucy Hawkins

WordsFlow Plus from Em Software. Value $300.00 Winner — Ana Valencia

GoProof from Oppolis Software. 3 month subscription for 2 users. Value $300.00 Winner — Wayne DeSelle
Proofing add-on for Adobe Creative Cloud. Version history tracks what has been changed and by whom.

Stock Layouts. Winner — David Nuon

in5 from Ajar Productions. Winner — Scott Rovin

Markzware. Any single product. 12 month subscription. Value $199.00 Winner — David Hguyen (ID2Q)
Choose one from the list below:
Q2ID (Quark to InDesign), Convert and open QuarkXPress files in InDesign.
PDF2DTP (PDF to InDesign), Convert PDF files to InDesign.
ID2Q (InDesign to Quark), Convert and open InDesign documents in QuarkXPress.
MT (Markzware), Convert InDesign documents to IDML files readable by InDesign CS4 through CC 2017.
FC (FlightCheck), Check native and PDF files for printing quality.

Expo Creative Asset Manager for Mac from Insider Software. Value $149.00 Winner — Marc Halperin
Digital asset manager that allows you to view, tag, search and manage images, icons, fonts, audio, video, app documents.

Suitcase Fusion 8 from Extensis. 12 month subscription. Value $119.95 Winner — Amy Parks
Font management program that allows you to organize your fonts from one plane—including system fonts, purchased fonts, fonts synced from Adobe Typekit, Google fonts, etc.

Font Agent Pro 8 from Insider Software. Value $99.95 Winner — Kathy Lange
Windows font management that allows you to organize, distribute and control your fonts.

InMotion Hosting. Web hosting and free domain. Value $90.00 Winner — June Czerwinski
Web hosting company.

DTP Tools Cloud for InDesign. 6 month subscription. Value $77.40 Winner — Michael Powe
Suite of 14 different InDesign productivity tools.

Multi-Find/Change 3.0 from Automatication. Value $49.95 Winner — Michael Powe
Extension for InDesign and InCopy that allows you to manage and execute Find/Change queries in batches rather than one at a time.

Adobe Stock. 15 image licenses. Value $44.00 Winner — David Nuon
Royalty-free, high-quality photos, videos, and illustrations.

InDesign Magazine. 6 month subscription. Value $30.00 Winner — David Nuon
Monthly PDF publication devoted to InDesign how-tos, in-depth features, and quick tips.

LA Web Professionals Group meeting tickets. Value $7.99 (four raffles) Winners — Dickson Gee, Marc Halperin, Jasper Johal, Richard Krause, Scott Rovin
Adobe user group that meets monthly with an emphasis on web design, marketing and the latest internet trends.

About the Presenter

Thomas Phinney

Thomas Phinney is CEO of FontLab, the font software tools company. Their latest app, FontLab VI, supports design and editing of both color and variable fonts. Thomas previously had strategic font product management roles at Adobe and Extensis. In the 2000s, he was instrumental in driving the adoption of OpenType, both within Adobe and in the marketplace. Thomas also developed character set standards for Adobe, and is the designer of Latin/Greek/Cyrillic typefaces Hypatia Sans and Cristoforo.

Thomas has four patents and a medal. He also has an MS in printing/typography from the Rochester Institute of Technology—where he did his thesis on the precursor to today’s variable font technology—and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. Thomas has been on the board of ATypI since 2004.