A MetaFont tool is a digital tool for drawing letterforms. It uses a skeleton-based construction, allowing easy manipulation by multiple parameters. A digital ‘pen’ can be applied and adjusted to create calligraphic strokes.

A MetaFont tool is a digital tool for drawing letterforms, inspired by the programming language developed in 1979 by Donald Knuth. Unlike traditional type design methods that rely on contours, this tool is based on a skeletal structure. This skeleton-based construction allows easy manipulation through multiple parameters such as height, width, weight or slant. Another feature of A MetaFont tool is the use of a virtual ‘pen’, simulating calligraphic strokes. In this way, a line becomes a shape, which could be described as a letter getting a ‘body’ over its ‘skeleton’. The tool allows the generation of great amounts of variation from one single skeleton.