Variable fonts and screen typography (2016–2024)
From the time of Gutenberg, typography was synonymous with printing and paper. However, recent years have witnessed the rapid development of computer screens and mobile devices as a medium through which text reaches recipients – from e-books to short texts on social media and instant messaging. Web browsers can display complex typesetting with any fonts embedded in the HTML code. Thanks to Google Fonts, the Polish ‘Lato’ font family is the most read screen typeface in the world created by an independent team (Dziedzic, Twardoch, Nikoltchev).
In 2016, at the ATypI conference in Warsaw, the world's largest computer companies are presenting a new version of the OpenType font format, which adds the ability to smoothly transform letter shapes. Internet browsers are the first programs that fully support variable fonts. For the first time, it is the screen, not the paper, that is the main medium of typographic innovation. Polish typography is doing well. There are several stores on the market offering typefaces created in Poland (Capitalics, Threedotstype). Some Polish designers publish their typefaces at the world's largest publishers. Multi script typefaces are created in Poland – fonts with Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew. Every year, the most prolific authors (Machalski, Jarociński, Mizieliński) are joined by new adepts in the art of designing letters. They cooperate with type designers and typographers from around the world, creating both simple display fonts, as well as complex typographic systems.
