The Parametric Power of Roboto Delta
For the past 5 years, the Google Fonts team has led development of the next generation of the OpenType font format as part of MPEG. Within our “OpenType 2.0” program we’ve also developed new typefaces, to convert the potential of these new technologies into realized typographic form. The biggest outcome so far is a new version of Roboto: Roboto Delta. We invited Font Bureau to create this masterpiece that showcases how parametric axes can leverage avar2 technology to create massive file-size savings. Roboto Delta offers 2,079 glyphs in Latin Greek and Cyrillic and is composed of 38 axes, yet is smaller than just a handful of Roboto static fonts. This 45 minute talk reviews why the project was commissioned, the theory and tools required to make it happen, and how designers can adopt it in Material, the design system for Google products and platforms, and in all kinds of visual design. This connects to both the theme of “Unicode as global public infrastructure” because Roboto Delta is a libre font available to the global public, and supports 3 writing systems (Latin, Greek and Cyrillic). It is also “opening doors to new audiences” because it will shows an innovative new typeface design that will appeal to the kinds of roles the event it seeking. What people will leave with (in addition to some fond memories) is a clear understanding of the benefits of new font format technologies and what Roboto Delta looks like and how it can be used to do better digital typography.