Hmm. Can't think of any with nine or more, at least not off the top of my head.

As for the secondary question: Benton Sans has Book, Light, Extra Light, and Thin, and Interstate has Light, Extra Light, Thin, and Hairline.

Maybe some of the Super Families have what you need?

Nevermind. I misread "more than" :-\

Would H&FJ-style grades count? Chronicle Text, for example, has three weights that each comes in four grades...

So basically, something bigger than Linotype Univers.

Good question.

[edit] Sorry, that only had nine, not more than 9.

@ Phinney: Why?

TheSans has 8 weights plus 8 hairline weights. That’s 16 weights altogether, with 11 of them lighter than Regular (‘Plain’).

Also from Luc(as) de Groot: Taz (10/4).

Flama by Mário Feliciano also scores a 10/4, topped by Jürgen Weltin’s Agilita: 10/5.

[[http://www.teff.nl/fonts/ruse/|TEFF Ruse]] by Gerrit Noordzij has 11 degrees of contrast.

-Paul van der Laan
www.type-invaders.com

> Would H&FJ-style grades count? Chronicle Text, for example, has three weights that each comes in four grades...

I'm going to assume they treated the grades in Chronicle Text the same as they did in Mercury Text; in which case, the Bold is the same weight for all grades. So the range would count as 9 "weights," not 12.

Not criticizing -- this is standard practice in grading. FB takes the same approach.

Just pointing out, is all.

Interesting! Thanks for pointing that out. I never realised that about grades. Hmm, all the big multi-weight families I can think of seem to have 9 weights, like some magic number...

Oh, I oversaw that Taz has Hairline weights aswell. That sums up to 15/9, as I see no reason why they shouldn’t count as one family.

This relates to a discussion on the W3C "style" list (CSS discussions, including web fonts). I'm watching quite a few things, trying to make sure that specifying fonts in CSS works as well as possible, with an eye to the day when one might be able to use a much wider variety of fonts (web fonts).

Basically CSS only allows a font family to have nine distinct weights (like the original Apple TrueType spec, I think). Folks at the W3C are questioning the need for allowing more than nine weights in a font family.

But Microsoft changed that scale (pre-OpenType, in their TrueType spec, in the OS/2 table) by multiplying it by 100, and the only plausible reason for that would seem to be to allow finer gradations of weight.

I think I'm coming to the realization that this is just another of the many compromises made in CSS font handling. Only a few families would be affected by this one. I suspect it would have to be much more badly broken for the W3C to consider changing it... I'll probably go find some other CSS fonts windmill to tilt at.

Cheers,

T

I am working on a family with 10 weights but it is not ready for release. My reasoning is not so much that you need 10 variations as giving the option to pick which 4 are best suited to particular needs (including reversed type, signage. text, display etc.

ChrisL

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dezcom/3157744858/

Is it possible that the 100-900 system dates back to when MM/GX fonts promised to allow arbitrarily small gradation on the weight axis?

More than 3 weights lighter than regular:

Mitigate
Silicone
Madawaska
Uniwars
Movatif
Tussilago
Carbon
Forgotten Futurist
Pricedown
Ethnocentric
Good Times
Bullpen
Sofachrome
Strenuous
Gyparody
Coolvetica
Pirulen

. . . and a few more.

Just a question ... do you need more than 9 weights on the web? On paper the difference in graduation can be noticed, but on the web, except at the largest sizes, you might not even be able to detect the difference between one weight and another. I can see five weights as being enough, seven or nine being gravy for that media.

As screen resolution improves, you may see more difference, Don.

ChrisL

Depending on how you count, Magma has 4 weights, 8 (adding in the halo versions), 10 (adding the thin weights), or 11 (adding the titling version).

...do you need more than 9 weights on the web?

At any size where the boldest weight vertical stem width is 10 pixels or more, yes.

Hello Tom,

at first I know that "Agilita" from Jürgen Weltin it contains 10 different weights

The Hairline and Ultrathin are not usable in low resolution os print sizes below 20 point. You can see this already at the screen samples if you look on the website.

http://www.linotype.com/en/3188/einleitung.html.

Yours Otmar

> At any size where the boldest weight vertical stem width is 10 pixels or more, yes.

Ah, so we need a weight for each possible pixel width. This could be problematic if we get to the point where a stem might be 24 or 30 pixels wide.

Don

:)

Neue Frutiger has 10 weights:
http://www.neuefrutiger.com/weights.html