Great to see the Opentype 1.8 added to the Adobe creative suite. Disappointing is the the lack of documentation and support to get the average, person started using this. Decided to start this thread, and hope you all will add interesting links or information to this.
Load a font
I recommend downloading the free Decovar Google developed. The Decovar variable font has some amazing options especially to the serifs, and shows how variable fonts go beyond what multiple masters ever could.
GitHub - TypeNetwork/fb-Decovar: A multistyle decorative variable font by David Berlow
Using variable type & svg type fonts
Once you load one of the new font you technologies, you will notice the font appears with the new opentype icons with either VAR or SVG in them.
Get to the variable type options
Look for this icon
Unfortunately the window will not expand fully so you will need to scroll
Trajan is an svg font, with multiple colors that comes with with 2018 update. You cannot change the color or swatch son the font, unless you outline the type to paths.
Problems
Some font lock up my system with a spinning beachball. Must be either Anton or Amstelevar Alpha. will report back when I find out more information. I had to force quit Universal Type Client, and restarting would give em a spinning beachball, unless is immediately hit some letters on the keyboard to avoid the font preview of the last font you were on. turning off preview allowed me to finally remove the fonts from our Universal Type Server, and get out of spinning beachball loop.
Some fonts such as Source serif are giving me some sharp edges, which go away if you go to the stroke palette palette and change limit check newly the defat of 10.
Where can I find a list of new fonts added by Adobe?
Been struggling to find this myself, hopefully someone at Adobe that worked on this can provide some more information but here is what I found
Opentype Variable
Acumin, Minion, Myriad, Source Code, Source Sans, Source Serif, System Font System Font are what I am finding.
SVG
Trajan Pro
Searched typekit for over an hour and found little or no mention of Variable or SVG fonts. Couple of blogs but they don't really say much. Hopefully typekit will get updated to feature and support these new technologies.
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Replies
Thankyou Miguel!
Hopefully a better way will be made to change colors for SVG fonts as using the glyphs panel is quite cumbersome. Below I set 3 red rectangles in Illustrator to blending mode of color, in an attempt to find an easier method for this.
Photoshop has a nice feature of option clicking between the layer underneath to create a clipping mask. Illustrator would need more work to create a custom mask and use make mask in transparency.
Addressing these core usability design issues is what will be important in either keeping these new font technologies in the future or them fading away and be forgotten as multiple master.
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