- From: John Hudson <tiro@tiro.com>
- Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 13:02:06 -0800
- To: www-style@w3.org
On 2018-01-16 12:02, fantasai wrote: > We can't do that, because there is no font technology that creates an > absolute scale of boldness across all fonts. > > If you stick to a single font family--and choose one with sufficient > weight variants--then you can get the predictable behavior you want. > For example, Avenir has six weights. And in the future, variable font > technology will allow interpolation of weight across the scale, so you > can get many more options with such a font. There's also the possibility, with variable fonts, of defining a weight axis (in addition to the CSS scale 'wght' axis that is already part of the OpenType Design-Variation Axis Tag Registry*) that uses something like per-mille-of-em as a scale, related to a typical key stem weight. This would enable not an absolute scale of boldness — since boldness is a perceptual phenomenon affected not just individual stem weights but overall texture of text, which differs not only across typeface designs but across writing systems — but closer matching than the enitrely arbitrary assignment of font weights to CSS weight class numbers. JH *https://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/dvaraxisreg.htm
Received on Tuesday, 16 January 2018 21:02:31 UTC