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Comment by mariusmg | Hacker News Reader

Everyone and their dog are making fonts these days. Not complaining about high quality free fonts, just find it a bit strange...

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Variable fonts, color fonts, etc. There's a lot happening

https://v-fonts.com/

I'll still only stick to websafe fonts for actual websites but I'm excited to see what the future holds. Also because I hate Arial

There's a lot you can do with variable fonts. I remember stumbling upon https://variicon.netlify.app/index.html a year or two ago, although there's disdain for using icons as a font it was eye opening for me with what you could do.

My favorite is fonts with a "serif-ness" slider. You can dynamically switch between a serif and sans serif version of the same font. Imagine doing it all with a single font!

And none of them seem to have good hinting for low-DPI use.

I suspect that’s because a fairly recent operating system version is required to support variable fonts and almost all of those devices are high resolution where hinting is unnecessary.

The iPhone 13 mini I’m using to type this has a pixel density of 476 ppi.

Of different categories of device:

• Most mobile devices are high-DPI. (In more affluent countries it’s “almost all”, but in others it’s only “many”.)

• Many tablets are high-DPI.

• Some laptops are high-DPI.

• Very few desktops are high-DPI.

It’s relevant for Full-HD desktops and laptops, both of which remain widespread. I don’t see them going away anytime soon, because of lower cost, and also because a lot of Windows applications are not (or not adequately) hi-DPI-capable. Even 1440p monitor benefit from hinting.

Yes, mobile devices are an entirely different environment. Personally I’m still waiting for 200+ DPI desktop monitors with high contrast (VA or preferably OLED).

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