Skip to content
Patens
ES

Axis range very wide

Audit code: axis-range-extreme

Definition

A designspace axis spans a range wider than the conventional comfort zone (wght > 800, wdth > 100, opsz > 50pt, slnt > 30°). Designers commonly draw extreme masters that don't interpolate cleanly through the middle of the range — consider whether you have a designed intermediate master, or whether intermediate weights are extrapolation. See variablefonts.io and Ahrens/Mugikura's Size-specific Adjustments for the design conventions.

How Patens surfaces this

The Patens audit module checks for axis-range-extreme across five teaching surfaces: the edit-panel inline issue list, the project-wide audit page, the release pre-flight check, the family hub, and the home-page project tile. Every surface shows the same plain-English explanation and links back to this page. This rule is detection-only — there's no automatic fix because the correction is design-dependent (it requires a judgment call about the glyph's intended shape or the font's intended behaviour). The audit message links to the specific glyph or field that needs attention.

Run this check yourself

Patens runs every audit rule live as you draw — including this one. The editor (in private alpha) shows axis-range-extreme firing on real glyphs, or check your own work from the CLI:

npx patens audit your-project.font.json

Canonical references

Primary literature where this rule is established or explained. Drawn from the open-licensed corpus — browse the full 38-source canonical library or read the research artifact.

  • A Variable Fonts Primer ↗

    variablefonts.io contributors · 2018 · variablefonts.io· Designing with variable fonts

    Practitioner-side guidance on axis-range trade-offs and when extreme masters need intermediates to anchor interpolation.

  • OpenType Specification 1.9.1 ↗

    Microsoft Typography · 1997 · Microsoft Corporation· § fvar — VariationAxisRecord min/max

    The fvar table allows arbitrary axis ranges; designers are responsible for ensuring interpolation quality across the declared range.

Related rules in Designspace axes

← All 101 audit rules