When testing my Variable Fonts in Figma, an additional instance called “Variable” shows up in the menu. I assumed, this is a Figma-specific thing, but it seems not to appear for other Variable Fonts. Has anyone an idea, how to avoid it?
Same problem in Indesign, where an extra instance called “Weight Italic” is displayed.
Of course, these instances are nowhere to find in the font’s meta information.
This happens when your origin master (the first one, if you didn’t set an explicit custom parameter) doesn’t correspond to an instance, if I recall correctly. Can you check the axis locations?
Thank you, @SCarewe!
Is there a trick to set a custom origin master which does not correspond to an instance, while avoiding this extra instance?
You’ll have to do that with fontTools: instancer — fontTools Documentation
I would strongly suggest aligning your masters with your instances. Do you have no master that has the same axis location as one of your instances? If you do, you can set that master as the origin by using the cutom parameter “Variable Font Origin”.
There are aligned masters, but only at the extremes. The central master, which I want as default, never turns out to be precisely an instance in the end. I could setup the Regular instance as new central master and replace the original one. This could happen on export via the API (as I want to keep working with my familiar central master) and should theoretically not change anything in the font’s appearance (I guess…?).
How important is the origin anyway? As I see it, it’s more of a cosmetic feature for the preview in font managers and the operating system. For webfonts it is generally not advised as it likely increases the font size (my current project with 12 masters is a great counter example, where a central origin surprisingly decreases the file size significantly).
Anyway… thank you so much for your advice, @SCarewe !
Technically speaking? Without the origin, you don’t have a variable font. Or do you mean what the importance of the location of that origin is? That is not so important, which is exactly why I’m suggesting you set it to a master that has a corresponding instance.
Of course, technically it is essential. But besides optimizing the file size in fringe cases, there seems to be not much to gain by setting a custom master. I have just checked the TrueType fonts in MacOS, Typeface App and Figma: no use of the origin master for preview there.
My point exactly. So set a custom one, which corresponds to an instance, that way you don’t get the extra “Variable” instance in Figma.