🟣 automatic type design 3 🟢
The videos from two and a half days of symposium are available online 🔵

https://automatic-type-design.anrt-nancy.fr/colloques/automatic-type-design-3

@stevenfeldman @Edent sure, send it over (will dm)

@grautesk @shadychars @underware @gabrowitsch may I suggest Mummy on a Bed (𓁀, U+13040), maybe also Feather of Ma’at (𓆄, U+13184), against which your heart is weighed after death

As a way out of the impasse, @lorp proposes that `font-optical-sizing` should accept a `<number>` that should control the pixel to opsz ratio, for web authors / users to choose what works best. Which sounds very good to me.

https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/4430

Fin. Hope I got the details right!

@litherum @TiroTypeworks @db @xotypeco right, and I think when @TiroTypeworks says “but getting browser makers to do it properly had been frustrating”, he assigns himself the responsibility of saying what “properly” is, in very technical terms, bearing in mind the unknowability of final realworld output size. IMO that is not possible in general, and the single workable solution is Apple’s reasonable default with overrides via CSS, perhaps in ways suggested in the megathread.

Went to see "The Truth About Harry Beck" at the Cubic Theatre (London Transport Museum) yesterday.

Brilliant. Even if you think you know about Beck and his "Diagram" you will learn and laugh in this charming performance.

Performances until 5th January

@eWalthert @letterror @jenskutilek @sajatype it’s a joke based on extrapolating from efficiency improvements when rewriting Python font processing libraries in Rust and JS… I assume and hope that heavy numeric code in Python doesn’t suffer the same lags :)

@letterror @jenskutilek @eWalthert I initially thought this was a comment on Guido getting an energy bill for worldwide Python use ;)

@justvanrossum @letterror avar2 allows you to choose whether the non-existent instance at bottom left maps upwards (to the master at top left) or to the right (to the existing bottomleftmost master)

A crucial thing #ATypI members do yearly is to elect new folks to the ATypI Board. Our volunteer board represents the type community and is entrusted with NPO mission oversight and ensuring ATypI has the resources it needs.

ATypI members running for 3-year terms are: 🇯🇵 Min-Young Kim, 🇬🇧 Xunchang Cheng, 🇧🇪 Ann Bessemans, 🇺🇸 Lucas Czarnecki, and 🇲🇽 Leonardo Vázquez.

Dues-paying ATypI members in good standing are eligible to vote. 🗳️

Voting form + info: https://atypi.org/about-atypi/who-we-are/elections-2024-25-atypi-board-of-directors/

Log in to vote.

@colinmford sure it is, and it’s far more fun, interesting and truthful than other lifestyle magazines!

@letterror now you know what it’s like to be ratioed on social media

It's Friday, so time for a visit to the Geomob podcast archives.

Our recommendation for your weekend listening pleasure is @freyfogle's discussion with Laurence Penney @lorp about the world's oldest known geospatial database: Ptolemy's *Geography*. A fascinating look back at how it all started.

Enjoy: https://thegeomob.com/podcast/episode-48

#geomobpod

@tphinney credit for the hexeract to Ben Rowe, @benroweartist on Instagram

@tphinney It must be fate… at tonight’s art exhibition at Spike Island open studios is a hand-made hexeract, or 6-dimensional cube (well technically one feeble projection thereof in 3-space), that I must think about as a UI for Fencer. It won’t confuse anyone will it?

ATypI member Eric Liú has written daily reports about ATypI Brisbane for the Chinese community with Zhiqian Li, his team member on the TheType website. https://www.atypi.org/2024/04/24/brisbane_thetype_report/

#ATypIBrisbane #ATypI2024

Variable fonts have a proposed new mechanism, a version 2 update to the AVAR table, to allow variable fonts to fence off unusable portions of the designspace, and otherwise distort the mappings. About AVAR2: https://type.today/en/journal/avar

For the bleeding-edge font folks… @lorp has a new tool for experimentally testing and modifying variable font AVAR2 mappings with interactive live visual output. You can drag mappings around AND then export the modified font! Wow.

https://github.com/lorp/fencer

The FontShop website is now seemingly missing all of its fine historical articles, like this one by Ferdinand Ulrich on Geometric Sans Serifs... thank God for the @internetarchive.

If there's anything you would like to take note of on any of the other websites under MT control, save them to IA now. I don't have to tell you it's only a matter of time.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230326055648/https://www.fontshop.com/content/short-intro-to-geometric-sans

@seraph regetwitter is hard

@dyana The thing that messed it up for me in 1999 was to follow a group of friends to a place where tons of other people were going. I can still remember the distinct voices of the Torquay local radio DJs vainly trying to chatter appropriately for an eclipse. So go remote, be with the birds.