Variable fonts are amazing, that's what we're going to do in this video... I'll explain what they are for the people that don't know what they do... and then we'll explain kind of the reasons why they're getting...|  more and more popular in UI design... both because of their flexibility and because of things like...|  file sizes, and how they could be implemented in CSS... then I go on a big tangent about independent foundries... and why you should use them...

so yeah, that's towards the end... all right, that is it, let's get into variable fonts... because they are amazing. So some of you know variable fonts, you might be using them... I just want to kind of point them out... and point them out why they're so useful and becoming more and more popular...

in kind of app design and web design. First up, what is a variable font? This font that I've been using... I pick Leto, it is not a variable font, how do I know? If I click on the little type settings here... there's no extra tab that says Variable...

I have a really great amount of different weights... and different italicies, different slants on it, so it's a really good font... it's going to do me well... but if I get the chance... I'm very excited when I pick a font that I like, that's also variable... what does it look like?

So this is Inter, the default, this one is variable... what it means is, I have best of both worlds... I have an option to actually just go straight old to Bold... for this first sentence here, but let's say for the title I want... maybe Bold, but actually, can you see... there's all this little adjustments in between...

can you see, when I drag this, can you see the title, look how much control I have... there's just so many fonts, we're like, Bold is not quite Bold enough... and Black ends up being like too much of, you know, too heavy... so you want to go back to like, "Oh, there's a little bit in the middle"... and why is this useful? It allows me a lot of control...

for the OCD designer in me... but also, when it comes to implementation on the code side... for either the app or the website... variable fonts are bigger, naturally... let me show you a font that I was messing with today... this font here Jog Clarendon...

what ends up happening is, there's two versions of this font... there's this version, which is your normal, where is it? This one here, Leto... jumping between all of these, there's just a bunch of different options... that's all of these... you install them all, and if you use them all...

the person building your app or your website...|  has to call all of these fonts to make it work... whereas this is bigger, you can kind of see it here... you see the Kilobytes is much bigger as this variable font... but it has all of this baked in, and all the bits in between... and it's really common when you are doing say a body copy font... to have at least four of these, anyway...

so you end up making up the size of that, you know... variable fonts are bigger for sure... but when you need four different weights anyway... you end up getting up to that size... and actually going way past it often. So variable fonts keep the file size down and gives you loads of extra control...

for those kind of edge cases we actually just need it to be... maybe the accessibility is wrong for this particular card... where you need to just bump it up a little bit more |... so that it's more visible against the background... is it required? No, it's nice to have, but it's always something I'm looking for...

and the other thing I want to point out while we're here is that...|  we've been using Google Fonts up until now... that's what's baked into Figma... but there are also loads of other ones around the world... from independent typographers, and I just want to point out... like I'm pointing out David Jonathan Ross for this one... just because I stumbled across one of his awesome fonts, this one here...

there's a free trial, and yes, you have to pay for it... if it needs to go into production, or use it for clients... but I think, as UX designers we're getting, I don't know... we're getting too Open Sans, Roboto-nist... where there's no love in the fonts anymore. So you can find great fonts, and also there is great variable fonts...

like this one here that I've downloaded, it's great and variable... and just look at how much we have on this one, so this one's Cabin... this one's from Google, so it will be in your drop down list... I'm going to switch to my new one... I can't give you the font because it's kind of--  you can get a free trial of this font, look how cool it is... you can go to his website here, djr.com, there's a free trial to go...

otherwise experiment with a Google font... and at the moment as well you can't really find out what is variable... I'm hoping that Font Preview plugin has it as an option... but also, you can go back to Google Fonts and do what I did, and just say... show me something that is, you know, only variable fonts... and you can kind of see if it has two axis or one axis...

what is two axis? Let me undo that... so Cabin is a good example of this, let's go in... so under Variable, can you see this, Weight and Width... I love it when there's width, especially for apps... the screen real estate is really small, you have to squeeze in some stuff...

so we've got Techno On The Bike for the name of this kind of event... but if there's something longer, I'm kind of stuck... breaking into two lines, having a word count on that... watch this, I can grab this, I'm not sure if I've got enough room... but can you see, I can use something, still not enough room... but it gives me ability to kind of fit more type in the top here...

they're all different, some widths go really, really low... and I love that ability to keep the same theme of font... same style, but be able to decrease or increase the width... and then this one here, it has weights as well, this one goes down to 400... and up to 700 only, but look at that. So I'm going to go back to my Job one, and just show you...

Techno On a Bike But, good work, Dan... let me just quickly make a couple of examples... look at that, look how much different though--  like how much communication you get with a variable font... like I can use the same font, keep the file sizes small... but do some very different things with my headings, cool, huh. Variable fonts are reasonably new...

so if you're working with a developer, you might have to just kind of say... "Hey, I'm using a variable font" ... so you're going to see all sorts of crazy sizes... normally they'd be expecting to see 700 or 300... but you've given them 763 because it's perfect for what you want to do... they might just dump it down to 700 because they're like, "How do I get 763?"  It's not hard, it's just a CSS class, easy to understand...

but you might have to remind them... or just at least point them in the right direction. All right, that's it, the other researchers go and YouTube, techno on a bike... or drum and bass on a bike, I love that guy... he cycles around, plays music, a bunch of people follow him, it's good fun... anyway, variable fonts, variable fonts are awesome...

if you didn't know about them, you're welcome, if you did know about them... hopefully they give you a little bit of information... so that you can sell it into the project... maybe look at paying for a font from an independent font source. Speaking of independent typographers... I'll give you the ones that I know, love, use...

and you can let me know in the comments the ones you do... so we can kind of get a little pull going. So David Jonathan Ross, somebody only just discovered recently... I'll leave all the links to this at the bottom of the exercise file... Klim, a fellow Kiwi... a beautiful website, and beautiful fonts, and big in the scene...

so go check out Chris' website, it's called klim.co.nz... CJ as well, somebody I know... does really cool fonts, I love using his work... and Blaze Type as well... it's more of a collection of independence... yeah, really cool stuff...

there's loads out there, so maybe explore something outside of Google Fonts... for your next project, yeah... all right, that is it, I will see you in the next video... go variable fonts.