Pre-VF Font Formats
| What | When/Where | Who | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| PostScript Type 1 | c. 1982, 1984, ended support 2023-01 | Adobe (John Warnock et al.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript_fonts |
| TrueType | September 1989 | Apple and Microsoft | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueType |
| Multiple Master (Adobe) | 1989 demo, 1992 first release Myriad MM | Adobe | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_master_fonts |
| TrueType GX | c. 1994 Skia | Apple | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickDraw_GX#TrueType_GX |
| OpenType | Announced 1996-09-10, Seybold Conference | Adobe and Microsoft | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenType 1996 MS Press Release |
Interpolation in Typeface Design
| What | When/Where | Who | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ikarus | 1975, ATypI Warsaw | URW, Peter Karow | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_(typography_software) |
| Mutator | 1993? | Apple (Mike Reed, Tom Rickner) | |
| Robofog | 1995 | Petr van Blokland, Just van Rossum, Erik van Blokland | The pre-history of RoboFont |
| Superpolator | 2004 | Erik van Blokland | https://superpolator.com/ |
Pre-History of Variable Fonts (up to the VF announcement)
| What | When/Where | Who | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mutator Math open sourced | 2014 ATypI Barcelona | Erik van Blokland, open sourcing funded by Adobe | https://github.com/LettError/MutatorMath |
| Fontmake | 2014 | Google, Behdad Esfahbod et al. | https://github.com/googlefonts/fontmake |
| Variable Fonts for Responsive Design**** | 2015-01 | Nick Sherman | A List Apart |
| Informal talks about bringing GX Variations into OpenType | 2015-10-15, ATypI São Paulo | Behdad Esfahbod + others | TypeDrawers comment |
| OpenType GX proposal | 2016-02 | Behdad Esfahbod, Google | Google Doc |
| varLib added to fonttools | 2016-04-13 | Google, Behdad Esfahbod et al. | https://github.com/fonttools/ |
| Private meetings in California | 2016 April, monthly until September | Google, Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Erik van Blokland, John Hudson | |
| “OpenType GX: Bringing font variations to OpenType” | 2016-05-10, Typolabs Berlin | Behdad Esfahbod | |
| OpenType 1.8 Announcement | 2016-09-14, ATypI Warsaw | Google, Apple, Adobe, Microsoft | YouTube |
Dunbar Release History and related info
| What | When/Where | Who | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dunbar Tall N error release | 2016-09-19 | CJ Dunn | |
| Dunbar initial release, variable font with: wght, opsz, and XHGT axes | 2016-10-19 | CJ Type (foundry launch) | * First retail variable font |
| Dunbar release write up | 2016-11-15 | Axis-Praxis |
Variable Font Support History
| Web VF initial support | ||
|---|---|---|
| WebKit Nightly Builds | 2016-09-30 | |
| Safari Technology Preview | 2016-10-12 | |
| Chrome Canary | 2016-12-22 | |
| Firefox | 2017-02 | |
| Edge (Windows 10 Anniversary Update) | 2017-04-11 | |
| Desktop Apps I've used VF in | ||
| Adobe Illustrator | CC 2018 | |
| Adobe Photoshop | CC 2018 | |
| Adobe InDesign | CC 2020 | |
| Adobe After Effects | CC 2026, Beta 26.0x40+ | |
| DrawBot | 3.115+ | |
| Figma | 114.4+ | |
Additional Information
| What | When/Where | Who | Reference | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The pre-history of RoboFont | 2021-01-09 | Frederik Berlaen | Robofont.com | |
| A brief history of font compilers | 2023-10-18 | Rod Sheeter, Dave Crossland | Github.com/GoogleFonts | |
| Application Support | Nick Sherman | v-fonts.com/support | ||
| Browser Support, early 2017 | 2017 | Laurence Penney | Axis-Praxis | |
| Side Note | ||||
| *** | 2013-07-19 | One afternoon Nick Sherman and I started looking at making fonts that could work in a responsive web page, responding to viewport, etc. We made a shared Dropbox folder, date created is Jul 19, 2013. I didn't get very far but I started looking at a geometric sans with different x-heights and descender lengths related to column width and leading. | ||