FWIW, people have glyph warping text (both on and off paths) using tools like Adobe Illustrator for as long as I can remember. I also don't quite get why one might want a capability that supports one type of glyph warping in the typeface itself.

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Luc 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A font is designed to have certain attributes (e.g. harmony between the letters). It is not clear that this harmony is preserved if you distort the font algorithmically. For this font the designer ensured that it is preserved.

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CharlesW 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I get that part (I've designed commercial typefaces), but as I understand it, (1) this only works for type on circles or circular arcs, and (2) the typeface has no awareness of the circle/segment it's on, so the designer still has to manually match the Curve property to the radius.

I think this is really cool and interesting work by Nick Sherman. I just wonder if I'm correct about the limited applications, and what could be done to enable the kind of "contextual intelligence" that would enable fonts to better optimize themselves for a broader set of types of envelope deformations.

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tobr 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Because it allows the effect of the curvature to be customized by hand for each letter shape by a skilled designer. Fonts like italics, bold or condensed can also be approximated with simple geometric operations, but I think you would agree that that looks terrible.