Tom:
The quick answer:
Myriad Regular Condensed is:
• Myriad MM 400 WT 300 WD (Multiple Master)
• Myriad Variable 400 WT 70 WD (OpenType Variations)
Myriad Semibold (Normal Width) is:
• Myriad MM 565 WT 600 WD (Multiple Master)
• Myriad Variable 600 WT 100 WD (OpenType Variations)
The more detailed answer:
Because Myriad was one of the first typefaces built to use Adobe’s PostScript Multiple Masters (MM) standard back in 1989–1992, its design is based upon how that standard specifically works. Myriad Variable Concept is an adaptation of Myriad MM, but is slightly quirkier than its predecessor.
Fortunately, there is a way to convert Myriad MM settings into Myriad Variable settings. It’s not exactly pretty, but it works. And these numbers are courtesy of my colleagues in Adobe’s Type Group, who designed and produced versions of the typeface over the past few decades:
MYRIAD WEIGHT AXIS
Multiple Masters (MM)
• Range = 215 to 830
OpenType Variations (VAR)
• Range = 300 to 900
Standard Weights
• MM 215 = VAR 300 = Light
• MM 400 = VAR 400 = Regular
• MM 565 = VAR 600 = Semibold
• MM 700 = VAR 700 = Bold
• MM 830 = VAR 900 = Black
MYRIAD WIDTH AXIS
Multiple Masters (MM)
• Range = 300 to 700
OpenType Variations (VAR)
• Range = 70 to 110
Standard Widths
• MM 300 = VAR 70 = Condensed
• MM 510 = VAR 90 = Semi-Condensed
• MM 600 = VAR 100 = Normal
• MM 700 = VAR 110 = Semi-Extended
Multiple Masters allowed typeface designers to make their works highly adjustable. Rather than designing discrete fonts separately – for example: light, regular, and bold weights – you simply design the two fonts on two ends of the scale, and use a slider to automatically calculate everything in-between.
Multiple Masters allowed scales – or axes – for any property you wanted. The four most popular:
• weight;
• width;
• optical size (to mimic the way that metal fonts were optimized for size);
• style (e.g. serif to sans-serif).
A Multiple Master font axis could run from 0 to 1000, although it wasn’t necessary to use the full range. Adobe’s own Type Group tried to establish standard values for specific properties; this is why Myriad MM has a weight axis that runs from 215 to 830, and a width axis that runs from 300 to 700.
Every Multiple Master font was adjustable, but within limits. Using a specific version – let’s say Myriad MM 700 WT 400 WD – would require first building an ‘instance’ of Myriad MM with a weight of 700 and a width of 400 in Adobe Type Manager (ATM), then using that instance in software like Illustrator. Want another instance? Then it’s back to ATM for another round.
And that’s one of the reasons why PostScript Multiple Masters never took off. The applications that most graphic designers used at the time – FrameMaker, Freehand, Illustrator, PageMaker, Photoshop, QuarkXPress, &c. – never supported Multiple Masters directly in their own interfaces. This – combined with designers’ difficulty in understanding what MM fonts could do for them, plus the challenges and extra work required to design and produce MM fonts – doomed Multiple Masters as a viable format. And by the time that the OpenType format was adopted around 2000, Multiple Masters had become an afterthought.
However, typeface designers still use Multiple Master technology to great effect today: it’s still an integral feature in major font software. If you’ve ever wondered how so many newer typefaces seemingly have a limitless range of weights, it’s because the type designer built their typeface with a Multiple Master weight axis, then simply generated all the weights they need between the two extremes.
How does the newer OpenType Variations font standard differ from Multiple Masters? Think of it as roughly the same idea – user-adjustable fonts – revisited a few decades later. Variations was introduced as part of the OpenType 1.8 standard in 2016, and combines some of the features of Multiple Masters along with Apple’s contemporaneous QuickDraw GX font technology (also from the 1990s).
The difference between Multiple Master and OpenType Variations is that the newer standard has finally found itself integrated into some application user interfaces, like Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. You no longer need to build a custom instance of a variable font before using it: simply open the Variable section of the Character panel, select the text you want to change, and slide the available sliders to your heart’s content.
Another advantage of OpenType Variations fonts is that they can be used online. Web browsers with native support for the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) ‘font-variation-settings’ property will render Variable fonts accurately, providing that the web browser knows how to support the feature. That way, the work you design in Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign using Variable fonts can be mirrored on webpages too. Just as long as you feel comfortable enough with HTML5 and CSS3 coding.
Returning to Myriad: how does the Multiple Master version compare to the OpenType Variations version? The answer isn’t entirely straightforward, but depends upon the primary font instances from the original Myriad MM design.
If you take a look at the tables of numbers above that directly convert Myriad’s MM values to their Variations equivalents, you’ll notice that there’s not exactly a direct relationship between the two sets of numbers. That’s because Myriad MM has linear axes, and Myriad Variable doesn’t.
In other words: the weight exactly halfway between Myriad MM 300 WT and 700 WT is 500 WT. This is not the case with Myriad Variable: you’ll need to experiment yourself to find a precise visual match between a custom weight of Myriad MM and its Myriad Variable counterpart.
Fortunately for most people, they never bothered to generate custom versions of Myriad MM. So it’s highly likely that the old layouts you want to rebuild simply used the default Myriad MM weights and widths. And if that’s the case, then all you need to do is to refer to the two conversation tables above – and your problems are solved.
Multiple Masters was a fun technology while it lasted. OpenType Variations is too, just as long as software developers are willing to support it. At the moment, I’m unaware if Adobe has published a set of MM-to-Variable conversion tables for the Multiple Master fonts that they produced during the 1990s. If not – and there’s enough demand – I hope that the Adobe Type Group will make them available.
I hope that answers your question. If not, please let me know.
Best regards
Andrew
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