The concept of a meta-font

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• svat · Jun 21, 2017 · Recommends

  …http://www.metaflop.com/modulator for an example of parametric fonts, inspired by Knuth's system: you can drag the sliders to adjust various font parameters, and get many different fonts. Knuth's article The Concept of a Meta-Font [1], published in Visible Language, is a classic. As you read the article he plays various tricks with the fonts as he describes them; it's a delightful read. (His followup article "Lessons learned from…

  on “A parametric version of the Spectral font” ↗
• gjm11 · Oct 20, 2009 · Recommends

  Knuth's paper "The concept of a meta-font" (from 1981) has a nice example in which he typesets Psalm 23 ("The Lord is my shepherd ..."), changing the parameters of his font a little with every character. It's sans-serif at one end, serif at the…

  on “Laika, a dynamic typeface” ↗
• svat · Jun 9, 2020 · Recommends

  …https://www.metaflop.com/modulator — play with the sliders, or click "flop it!" a few times. That's the best very-quick introduction today to the basic ideas behind Metafont I think, and the best less-short one is Knuth's “The Concept of a Meta-Font” (1982) — this 25-page paper (in large font so it's really not very long) is IMO not just a great read but a brilliant performance (https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/16.1/...) BTW…

  on “Metafont (1984)” ↗
• svat · Apr 25, 2020 · Recommends

  Those who enjoy this sort of thing might also enjoy reading Donald Knuth's “The Concept of a Meta-Font” (from 1982): http://visiblelanguagejournal.com/issue/61/article/748 — although the technology used is very different (it was designed for print after all), he plays a lot of lovely tricks with the font…

  on “Times New Arial” ↗
• svat · May 31, 2026 · Recommends

  See “The Concept of a Meta-Font”: https://gwern.net/doc/design/typography/1982-knuth.pdf

  on “Shantell Sans” ↗
• svat · Sep 2, 2019 · Mentions

  …have successfully created “true” meta-fonts as Knuth intended is tiny. Nevertheless, when used with skill it can be very satisfying, as in Knuth's paper that I can only describe as a performance (The Concept of a Meta-Font, https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/16.1/... ) See also A Punk Meta-Font (https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb09-2/tb21knut.pdf) where he describes waking up one morning with an idea to…

  on “Leon Sans, a geometric typeface made with code” ↗
• gjm11 · Mar 5, 2019 · Mentions

  Yeah, it's a bit strange seeing this described as if it's a new thing. 1982: Knuth's paper "The concept of a meta-font" is published. 1991: Adobe's "Multiple Master" fonts are introduced. 1994: Apple's TrueType GX is introduced. (Later "Apple Advanced Typography".) 2016: OpenType "variable fonts". Maybe "variable…

  on “An Exploration of Variable Fonts (2018)” ↗
• svat · Dec 29, 2018 · Mentions

  In fact Knuth wrote a wonderful article explaining the idea. The article is available online, and is just an explanation but a superb performance — “The Concept of a Meta-Font”, by Donald E. Knuth, in Visible Language, XVI 1 (Winter 1982): https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/16.1/... (Republished in the book/collection Digital Typography.) So he seems to…

  on “Inter UI, a typeface designed for user interfaces” ↗
• svat · Oct 3, 2023 · Mentions

  Hofstadter's article is very interesting and delightful (as is typical of him). But as a response to Knuth's article it's basically reacting to a straw-man or misunderstanding: by "a metafont" in "The Concept of a Meta-Font"[1] Knuth simply meant a common description of many related fonts in a family (like the Computer Modern family where different font sizes, bold, italics, sans-serif, typewriter style etc are all generated…

  on “Hey, Computer, Make Me a Font” ↗
• svat · May 21, 2026 · Mentions

  …typographically beautiful shapes, but to be able to generate those shapes with code. This is obviously much harder than simply drawing the shapes using visual intuition, even if it enables variation. (See “The Concept of a Meta-Font”: https://gwern.net/doc/design/typography/1982-knuth.pdf — again, many people in the typography world confuse the abstract concept of a meta-font introduced in this paper with (their incorrect impressions…

  on “The Letter S, by Donald Knuth [pdf]” ↗
• svat · May 21, 2026 · Mentions

  …especially in physics where the situation has gotten even worse. Frankly, I think the "replace art by technology" impression is a very shallow one, that I alluded to earlier. When Knuth wrote his “The Concept of a Meta-Font” in a journal (Visible Language) mostly read by designers/typographers, many of them wrote letters in response (https://shreevatsa.net/tex/metafont/concept#reactions). What you can see is that the best…

  on “The Letter S, by Donald Knuth [pdf]” ↗