The Power of Variable Fonts: An Interview with Jason Pamental
Traditionally, typography on the web has been constrained by the need to balance it with performance. Variable fonts — which enable many different variations of a typeface in a single font — not only address the technical issue by using fewer files, resulting in faster load times, but also offer new creative opportunities. Web design pioneer Jason Pamental is convinced that they are the future of type, and even design as a whole, on the web.
“Performance is the first piece of design that a user encounters,” he explains. “We’ve had it drilled into us that we need the text to show up quickly on the screen, so people can start to interact. So we use fewer fonts, and that gets passed off as good typography. But it’s not. Effective typography uses a whole range of weights, widths and implementations. It creates strong contrast, visual interest and hierarchy. Variable fonts allow us to be much more creative and intentional. They give us the ability to create a more compelling experience that’s tailored to exactly what the user needs. The promise for design on the web is simply ground-breaking.”
Since their introduction in late 2016, Jason has been extensively researching, writing about, and working with variable fonts as well as spreading awareness at events and for in-house teams all over the world. After almost 25 years in the industry, he decided he wanted to have a bigger impact and improve typography on a broader scale rather than just one site at a time, so he quit his agency job and — realising variable fonts’ potential — began to focus on them full-time. His work includes educational materials (for example, a guide for Mozilla’s MDN site), demos for Monotype and Type Network, and a ton of resources on his own site.
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