04 / 25·Typography & Craft
ARCHIVE OF LIGHT
Variable-font specimen. Type that bends under your cursor.
About the work
A specimen site where the typeface is the exhibit. Cursor position drives Fraunces' variable axes — weight, optical size, softness, wonk — so the headline physically responds to your hand, and a velocity-reactive marquee stretches with your scroll.
How it was made
Built around one rule: the type is the only image on the site. Passes went to easing the axis response so it feels magnetic rather than jittery, and to making the playground respect reduced motion by settling axes to fixed values.
Like every work in the exhibition, it passed three full iteration passes — a visual critique, a deepening pass, and a QA pass at 390px with reduced motion and zero console errors — and documents itself in its own build guide.
Key features
- Cursor-mapped variable axes: wght, opsz, SOFT and WONK live
- Scroll-velocity marquee that stretches and snaps back
- A contenteditable playground for setting your own words
- Specimen tables that double as the page's structure
Technology
- Variable fonts
- GSAP
- Pointer mapping
- contenteditable
In its own light
