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Family Stem Weights Calculator
PabloImpallari Posts: 376
edited March 2013 in Type Design Software
This is a simple little tool that will help you plan the stems weights values across a 9 styles family. Input your thinnest and boldest stems values, and it will show you a wide range of possibilities to get you started.
The first column will provide steps of equal size. The last column will provide progressive steps. The 3 columns in the middle will provide intermediate steps.
You can use this values as a starting point to plan your family. The final decision, of course, is up to you!
www.impallari.com/familysteps/
Tagged:
interpolation
family
stem
weight
9
«12»
Comments
Georg Seifert Posts: 261
This is a great tool. One thing you should add is an option to specify the number of steps.
0
PabloImpallari Posts: 376
Thanks Georg!
Currently I've chosen those 9 weights as to match the CSS3 specs. The option to specify the number of steps is in my To-Do list, maybe in the next update.
4
James Montalbano Posts: 613
edited December 2012
0
Ermin Međedović Posts: 62
I agree, it's a great tool. And if there's any possibility to start with Regular weight and thinest (or boldest) and it calculate the rest. Some kind of extrapolated calculation.
0
Max Phillips Posts: 377
@ mean?
0
James Montalbano Posts: 613
@ had a nice look to it.
Nothing sinister, but I'm thinking of trying it out on Typophile to see if I can get Hrant to go into convulsions again.
2
Max Phillips Posts: 377
Thanks for the explanation, James. And a very merry ### to you.
2
PabloImpallari Posts: 376
Updated, now you can choose form 3 to 10 steps
7
Thierry Blancpain Posts: 68
Lovely! Thanks for that addition.
0
Russell_McGorman Posts: 90
Nice! and timely for me too. Thanks, Pablo.
0
PabloImpallari Posts: 376
edited January 2013
Updated once again (version 4), with lots of goodies! Please, take a few minutes to analyze the results, compare to your own families, and let me know what you think, or what can be done to improve it.
If you wants to contribute the data from your own fonts (will be helpful to further improve the results) you can do it like this: MyFontName = 20, 40, 60, 80, 120, 140
0
George Thomas Posts: 234
v3 has already been of great benefit to me by using it to validate the manually selected numbers I already had set up for a family of six weights. It let me know that one of my numbers was out of range and needs redoing.
Thanks so much for this tool; it's saved me a lot of wasted time.
1
Jackson Cavanaugh Posts: 488
Let's not forgot to trust our eyeballs. Formulas are great to start but I've found some instances seem to need adjustment, either for an smooth transition across weights or for the intended size/use (regular being used more in text, thins more in displays, etc).
2
PabloImpallari Posts: 376
edited January 2013
Yep, exactly. That's why I made this, my eyes were not happy with the Lucas formula. It works great when the difference from Black-Thin is small, but it fails when the range is bigger, as the Thin steps get too close together, while the Bolder weights get too far apart. I hope this ones get closer to better result, but of course there is room for improvements. All in all, I think my tool offers a good starting point, and then we can refine from there. That's the whole idea.