5 ms·

Decovar – A multistyle decorative variable font

64 points by davelab6 10y ago

dsr_ 10y ago
That's pretty cool, but in order to use it on my desktop, do I need an all-new font widget that can control every aspect of the specification? Or do I fiddle on a webapp until I get the one that I want, download it and use it as normal... and now I have a thousand variants of Decovar that I have to squint at very carefully to differentiate? I'm not complaining about choice, I just want to know if anybody has thought about usability.
- akita-ken 10y ago
  If you clone the repo (or download the .UFO files from the sources folder), you can find all the variations with different skeletons and terminals that you can play around with in an editor like RoboFont.
- davelab6 10y ago
  Yes, all applications now need an all-new font widget. The first program with such a widget is https://github.com/googlei18n/fontview https://github.com/googlei18n/fontview
falsedan 10y ago
Sounds an awful lot like METAFONT.
- thechao 10y ago
  The thing I absolutely miss the most from grad school is porting my advisor's whiteboard chicken scratch into parametric METAPOST graphics. It let us size & scope images to their target: posters, conference papers, slides, journal publications, etc.
- webmaven 10y ago
  It does, doesn't it? There seems to be a fairly clear trail of inspiration from this and many similar ideas in the past.
j-pb 10y ago
Like the vulcans say: "Infinity ugliness in infinite combinations." Seriously I couldn't find one decent looking version of that font...
- webmaven 10y ago
  Then you really aren't trying hard enough.
and0 10y ago
This is really cool. Did anyone else try to drag the "Drag Me!" bubble for 10 seconds, though? Instead of the line itself, I mean.
- dEnigma 10y ago
  Yup, it's like a door that says "PUSH" or a button that says "Click me!", I automatically -and I think understandably- assumed I should drag the thing it's written on, not the thing next to it
milesrout 10y ago
But why?
dberlow 10y ago
Wow, thanks for all your comments. I even clicked on the Drag sign myself. We can make it that way too. Ugliness vs Beauty, is a subjective judgement, and if one person, or 1,000 thinks it either way, the type designer is usually trying to please just one person. In this case, the designer is trying to please a range of tastes, in both print and animation, from subtle stroking of the style, barely perceptible like the sound your fingers make parting to drop a pin, which is one whole tradition in type use, to making your eyes bleed, the range of which variations are all about, and has been for centuries. We'd certainly appreciate the Hacker News hackers' perspective on Use! User Interfaces! CSS, and how applications should continue to support variations, in more sensible ways. You can do that here, and also there are several other places you can sound in if you start hacking around. Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and many others will be offering pretty fonts soon. I felt it'd be good to make sure to get people's eyes to bleed first, to open them up. Thanks for that confirmation.
- tyingq 10y ago
  >Ugliness vs Beauty, is a subjective judgement To some degree. I can't imagine, though, how this is useful: http://imgur.com/a/82c9w http://imgur.com/a/82c9w :)
  - davelab6 10y ago
    I could see that being used in an advertisement where it taking a moment to figure out the text is intended
    - j-pb 10y ago
      Rule 1 of advertisement. If your customer can't understand the message while flicking through a magazine, skimming through webpages or driving past a sign nobody will buy your stuff. Most buy desicions are even made unconciously. I see a lot of artsy advertisement and packaging from people fresh out of school amd that stuff simply wouldn't fly in the real world.
      - 10y ago

64 points by davelab6 10y ago

dsr_ 10y ago

That's pretty cool, but in order to use it on my desktop, do I need an all-new font widget that can control every aspect of the specification? Or do I fiddle on a webapp until I get the one that I want, download it and use it as normal... and now I have a thousand variants of Decovar that I have to squint at very carefully to differentiate? I'm not complaining about choice, I just want to know if anybody has thought about usability.

akita-ken 10y ago
If you clone the repo (or download the .UFO files from the sources folder), you can find all the variations with different skeletons and terminals that you can play around with in an editor like RoboFont.
davelab6 10y ago
Yes, all applications now need an all-new font widget. The first program with such a widget is https://github.com/googlei18n/fontview https://github.com/googlei18n/fontview

falsedan 10y ago

Sounds an awful lot like METAFONT.

thechao 10y ago
The thing I absolutely miss the most from grad school is porting my advisor's whiteboard chicken scratch into parametric METAPOST graphics. It let us size & scope images to their target: posters, conference papers, slides, journal publications, etc.
webmaven 10y ago
It does, doesn't it? There seems to be a fairly clear trail of inspiration from this and many similar ideas in the past.

j-pb 10y ago

Like the vulcans say: "Infinity ugliness in infinite combinations." Seriously I couldn't find one decent looking version of that font...

webmaven 10y ago
Then you really aren't trying hard enough.

and0 10y ago

This is really cool. Did anyone else try to drag the "Drag Me!" bubble for 10 seconds, though? Instead of the line itself, I mean.

dEnigma 10y ago
Yup, it's like a door that says "PUSH" or a button that says "Click me!", I automatically -and I think understandably- assumed I should drag the thing it's written on, not the thing next to it

milesrout 10y ago

But why?

dberlow 10y ago

Wow, thanks for all your comments. I even clicked on the Drag sign myself. We can make it that way too. Ugliness vs Beauty, is a subjective judgement, and if one person, or 1,000 thinks it either way, the type designer is usually trying to please just one person. In this case, the designer is trying to please a range of tastes, in both print and animation, from subtle stroking of the style, barely perceptible like the sound your fingers make parting to drop a pin, which is one whole tradition in type use, to making your eyes bleed, the range of which variations are all about, and has been for centuries. We'd certainly appreciate the Hacker News hackers' perspective on Use! User Interfaces! CSS, and how applications should continue to support variations, in more sensible ways. You can do that here, and also there are several other places you can sound in if you start hacking around. Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and many others will be offering pretty fonts soon. I felt it'd be good to make sure to get people's eyes to bleed first, to open them up. Thanks for that confirmation.

tyingq 10y ago
>Ugliness vs Beauty, is a subjective judgement To some degree. I can't imagine, though, how this is useful: http://imgur.com/a/82c9w http://imgur.com/a/82c9w :)
- davelab6 10y ago
  I could see that being used in an advertisement where it taking a moment to figure out the text is intended
  - j-pb 10y ago
    Rule 1 of advertisement. If your customer can't understand the message while flicking through a magazine, skimming through webpages or driving past a sign nobody will buy your stuff. Most buy desicions are even made unconciously. I see a lot of artsy advertisement and packaging from people fresh out of school amd that stuff simply wouldn't fly in the real world.
    - 10y ago