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Family Stem Weights Calculator

spacer 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

  • spacer Georg Seifert Posts: 261
    This is a great tool. One thing you should add is an option to specify the number of steps.
    0
  • spacer 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
  • spacer James Montalbano Posts: 613
    edited December 2012
    0
  • spacer 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
  • spacer Max Phillips Posts: 377
    @ mean?
    0
  • spacer 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
  • spacer Max Phillips Posts: 377
    Thanks for the explanation, James. And a very merry ### to you.
    2
  • spacer PabloImpallari Posts: 376
    Updated, now you can choose form 3 to 10 steps
    7
  • spacer Thierry Blancpain Posts: 68
    Lovely! Thanks for that addition.
    0
  • spacer Russell_McGorman Posts: 90
    Nice! and timely for me too. Thanks, Pablo.
    0
  • spacer 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
  • spacer 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
  • spacer 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
  • spacer 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.
    0
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