February 24, 2026
Font Fights!
Variable interpolatable smooth curves and outlines
Designer makes smoother letters; commenters roast ancient tools vs fresh math
TLDR: A type designer unveils smoother, adjustable letter shapes inspired by new curve research, while calling out MetaPost’s creaky, Pascal-powered tooling. Commenters split between nostalgia and pragmatism, with memes about literate programming irony and calls to move fonts into modern, friendlier tools.
Font nerd alert: type designer Santhosh Thottingal dives into how to get seriously smooth, adjustable letter shapes, borrowing ideas like a "two-parameter" curve from Raph Levien and poking at the old-school guts of MetaPost. He’s chasing curves that feel relaxed and beautiful, like Malayalam script does in his Manjari font, and explaining it in human terms: draw points, let math make the line silky, tweak the vibe. There’s even a nod to Hobby curves and MetaPost’s new 2024 SVG support. Cue the comments: drama!
The community split fast. One camp loves the mathy elegance and is hyped for variable strokes and error-correcting “skeletons”—aka smarter outlines that don’t wobble. The other camp? Roasting the tech stack. MetaPost runs through a literate programming system called WEB to generate Pascal, and folks can’t decide if that’s charmingly retro or a developer nightmare. The hottest thread riffs on the irony: a tool built for “better code writing” that’s now hard to extend. Memes flew about dusting off Pascal manuals and “grandpa fonts,” while purists defended the aesthetics: smooth curves over shiny tools. The vibe: curve glow-up vs tooling throwback, with jokes, side-eye, and lots of “just give me a modern editor already” energy.
Key Points
- •The author uses a MetaPost-based parametric approach to type design but notes MetaPost’s aging tooling and extensibility limitations.
- •MetaPost relies on Hobby’s algorithm to fit smooth Bézier splines through points, with controls for tension and tangent angles.
- •Raph Levien’s 2018 two-parameter curve method is highlighted, with an available JavaScript implementation and interactive demo.
- •The article outlines advanced topics: curvature optimization, parallel outlines, interpolatable variable strokes, and skeleton-based error correction.
- •MetaPost gained SVG output support in 2024, improving integration with modern vector workflows.