Writing with Light in Variable Fonts
The idea of modifying a typeface’s letterforms for different situations is nothing new. As far back as Gutenberg, each size of a letterpress typeface has traditionally featured “optical size” variations that altered the spacing, proportions, weight, and other details for optimal results.2


See the Pen Growing Grassy Text with Variable fonts. by Mandy Michael (@mandymichael) on CodePen.
The underlying problem is that the screen mimics the sky instead of the earth. It bombards the eye with light instead of waiting to repay the gift of vision — like the petals of a flower, or the face of a thinking animal, or a well-made typographic page. And we read the screen the way we read the sky: in quick sweeps, guessing at the weather from the changing shapes of clouds, or in magnified small bits, like astronomers studying details. We look to it for clues and revelations more than wisdom. This makes it an attractive place for the open storage of pulverized information — names, dates, or library call numbers, for instance — but not so good a place for thoughtful text.4
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“Optical size, the hidden superpower of variable fonts,” Pixel Ambacht, June 17, 2021. “Variable fonts in real life: how to use and love them,” Evil Martians blog, March 24, 2022. The most thorough and thought-provoking introduction to variable fonts that I’ve read is this extended essay from Type Network. ↩︎ -
Nick Sherman, “Font Hinting and the Future of Responsive Typography,” A List Apart, February 22, 2013. ↩︎ -
Spectral is one of several fonts I’ve seen referred to as “screen serifs”: typefaces that are designed to be read on screens rather than revivals of canonical print fonts. The sentence you are now reading (at least at the time of publication) is set in one of these screen serifs: Source Serif 4. ↩︎ -
Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style. Fourth Edition (version 4.3), Twentieth Anniversary Edition. (Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 2019), 192-94. ↩︎ -
Kris Sowersby, writing about the design of his screen serif Signifier, also touches on responsive typography as writing with light: A craft history with five centuries of physical output replaced by virtual output takes some reconciling. We have retained our sense of line, spacing and form. We have lost the physical, material touch, as Ruskin once railed against. What we have gained is speed, flexibility and reach. Raymond Gid elegantly expresses the transition when he wrote, “Letter, you are to be married to Light. That is the wedding that we shall celebrate to-morrow”.
“Signifier design information,” Klim Type Foundry blog, August 26, 2020. Citing Raymond Gid, “Célébration de la Lettre”, (1962). ↩︎