New Download formats: WOFF2 and COLR.
News | Rob Meek (meek) | April 13th, 2025
Dear FontStructors,
A small, tardy birthday gift to celebrate FontStruct’s recent 17th birthday: Today we’re adding support for two new download formats to FontStruct: WOFF2 – the current standard webfont format – and COLR v0 – the colour font format with the broadest software support, much broader than SVG Truetype, which was all we offered until now.
The headline for this blog post is not a GIF. It’s a font! (kd loopin by kassymkulov): a WOFF2 webfont with COLR. You’ll notice that it’s possible to customize the font colours with COLR fonts. You can even animate the palettes. Also, because it’s a webfont, you can embed it and try it out directly in your browser. Click on the headline and give it a go!
You’ll find the new download formats on the download page for each FontStruction e.g. zeeventeen eye/FS. (COLR only for colour fonts obviously).
Creating colour fonts will remain patron-only for the forseeable future, BUT we will soon run a colour competition for which all FontStructors will be able to design in colour.
Clockwise from top left: kd pirog by kassymkulov, bulbambulAI3630i by jirinvk, zupra 3D eYe/FS by elmoyenique, and priosma by four
Special thanks as always to our patrons who support work on new features such as this one, as well as the costs of running and maintaining FontStruct. And many thanks also to our two generous sponsors Glyphs and Fontself – wonderful people creating excellent and unique font creation software.
Happy FontStructing!
That’s pretty cool!! I hope GSUB/GPOS Opentype features are in the plans.
– BWM — April 13, 2025 #
This new update is interesting.
– ctcg_ — April 13, 2025 #
Yes they are (GPOS we already use for kerning).
– Rob Meek (meek) — April 13, 2025 #
@meek: What a wonderful gift, Big Boss!
– elmoyenique — April 13, 2025 #
For the kerning, support for kerning by classes, for example AÀÁÂÃÄÅĀĂĄǍǞǠǺȀȂ… could be one class defined by the font creator, and WŴẀẂẄẆẈ… could be another…
– BWM — April 13, 2025 #
Oh wow! Thank you and for using my font, and I was shocked that I could type directly on it. Great news for everyone.
– kassymkulov — April 13, 2025 #
wow i can change the text on the headline somehow
– digitalio-2 — April 13, 2025 #
I Like this New Update!
– JeycoMonge — April 13, 2025 #
“BUT we will soon run a colour competition for which all FontStructors will be able to design in colour.”
Jeez I better get a move on then if I wanna submit an entry for ColorComp
– Fluxxor392 — April 14, 2025 #
i kinda like this new update, thank you @meek!
– SUMMER701 — April 15, 2025 #
@BWM Yeah, that would make kerning way less tedious!
Also, could we get ligatures, stylistic forms and other more advanced OpenType features?
– MetrikEnzyme — April 15, 2025 #
@MetrikEnzyme Meek said it’s in the plans.
Also, for COLR format, I was wondering if it’d be possible for the font generator to not create empty glyph components/layers, to potentially help reduce file size.
– BWM — April 15, 2025 #
How exciting! Always love seeing more support for COLRv1 format. Is there a way to get an email notification when the competition is announced?
– SophiaTypeLove — April 18, 2025 #
On the one hand, hurrah! On the other: I now need to go back through my 1500 fonts and redownload them all in the newer formats :)
– redux — April 18, 2025 #
i wonder if there’ll be more layers for color fonts instead of 8…
– digitalio-2 — April 18, 2025 #
What a great addition to FontStruct!
– four — April 19, 2025 #
not all fonts allow colr yet
– digitalio-2 — April 20, 2025 #
10/10 update.
– SurStructer — April 21, 2025 #
FontStruct is gradually growing overtime! I suggest two FontStruct letter sets that can be used without having to turn on the “Unicode Letter Sets” option at Expert Mode: these are Kannada, and Oriya. Telugu has a letter set that can be used without having to turn on Expert Mode or the “Unicode Letter Sets” option at Expert Mode, while Kannada doesn’t. It will be more fun to add India’s writing systems when “Kannada” and “Oriya” have their own letter sets that can be used without having to enable Expert Mode or the “Unicode Letter Sets” option at Expert Mode.
– ctcg_ — April 25, 2025 #
I’ll try and remember to send you a mail. We will also announce on https://typo.social/@fontstruct
– Rob Meek (meek) — April 27, 2025 #