Variable font usage has grown to an impressive 29% (up from 13%). About 97% of variable font usage is from @googlefonts; only 3% from self-hosting and other services.

Most people use variable fonts for performance and not for their typographic potential.

almanac.httparchive.org/en/2022/fonts#…

@bram_stein @googlefonts This is great, thanks for sharing!

But I disagree with the statement that “type designers can choose the outline format they prefer”, and that the prevalence of TTF/glyf outlines over CFF shows “what type designers have chosen”.

Unfortunately it’s not that straightforward. …

@bram_stein @googlefonts … I’d say the prevalence of TTF/glyf outlines is at least partly related to earlier/wider support for TTF than CFF for variable fonts, both in production and use.

As a web & type designer I’d rather deliver smaller CFF files in an outline format matching the original drawings.

@NickSherman @bram_stein @googlefonts “Type designers can choose the outline format they prefer” — not if you publish with Google Fonts.

Maybe the apparent bias towards TTF has something to do with this.

@davelab6 @justvanrossum @bram_stein @googlefonts [Citation needed] …

I'm sure there are situations where TTFs are smaller, but in all the test I’ve done on the fonts I’m making they definitely aren’t.

e.g. a TTF-flavored variable WOFF2 for HEX Franklin (hex.xyz/HEX_Franklin/) is 19% larger than its CFF2 counterpart.

@davelab6 @justvanrossum @bram_stein @googlefonts TTFs are much bigger going in, so they benefit more from WOFF2 compression, percentage-wise. But as this article explains (if I’m reading it correctly), the CFF2 WOFF2s are still often smaller than TTF WOFFs equivalents, especially for smaller fonts.