A simple resource for finding and trying variable fonts
⚠️ Notice: As a showcase of variable fonts, this site requires a web browser that supports OpenType font variation technology. It looks like your browser doesn’t, so please consider upgrading to one that does (the latest versions of Chrome work well, even on older operating systems). Otherwise, the font samples below will only appear as static fonts.
An experiment in italicization, this one-off member of the Roslindale type series can vary its italic forms separately from the angle of slanting. The vast majority of typefaces change italic forms along with slanting, so this may be the first case of both the registered ‘italic’ and ‘slant’ axes being used in the same variable font.
An extra heavy typeface originally inspired by hand-lettering from a 1950s Korean movie poster. Offered with discounted pricing while it’s still a work in progress.
The iA Writer fonts, made for the iA Writer app, are a modification of IBM Plex, originally designed by Bold Monday with Mike Abbink at IBM. The Mono fonts match glyph widths for all characters. Duo allows an additional glyph width for letters that are otherwise cramped. Quattro uses 4 glyph widths, approaching a standard proportional typeface. Within the iA Writer app, variable weight and spacing values are adjusted depending on font size, screen, and color settings.
Design:
Oliver Reichenstein, Bold Monday, Mike Abbink, Paul van der Laan, Pieter van Rosmalen
An all-purpose sans with moderate stroke contrast, initially inspired by 20th-century lettering books from German designer Eugen Nerdinger. The variable fonts are included when licensing the full series of static fonts.
Handjet started as an exercise with design students to make a typeface for handset printers and their 32-pixel vertical matrix, but grew into a large multi-script design. It is “provided for free, for a limited time, without any artistic aspirations, assumptions of originality, or kerning”.
A reinterpretation and expansion of Marvin, Michael Chave’s 1969 phototypesetting typeface. The new design was initially developed for use in Visions, a science-fiction magazine.
Design:
Mathieu Triay
Publisher:
Atelier Triay
Characters:
Latin, Cyrillic
Release:
2018-12-03
Licensing:
Trial, Free for non-commercial use, Paid/commercial
A playful, brushy typeface based on lettering from US National Wilderness signage. Offered with discounted pricing while it’s still a work in progress.
Titillium started as a collaborative open source font project at Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino. It was expanded by Mohamed Gaber to support Arabic (under the name Cairo), and adapted to a variable format by Eli Heuer. The upright font currently covers a wider range of weights than the italic.
Design:
Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino, Mohamed Gaber
Publisher:
Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino, Kief Type Foundry, Eli Heuer
A grotty sans with a wide range of typographic features: Adobe Latin 3 character support, small caps, stylistic alternates, upper- and lowercase numerals, etc.