NIV: Neural Axis Variations for Variable Font Generation

1Reichman University

The well-known static font Calibri becoming variable.

Abstract

Variable fonts enable continuous variation of glyph geometry along semantic design axes such as weight, width, slant, and optical size. However, constructing a variable font from a static font remains a labor-intensive process requiring expert type design and manual specification of glyph variation data. We introduce NIV (Neural Axis Variations), a method that automatically converts a static font into a fully functional variable font. Given glyph outlines and a set of desired design axes, NIV predicts per-point displacement fields. The model operates directly on vector glyph geometry and employs a novel \emph{Combinatorial Embedding} mechanism that captures higher-order interactions between multiple axes, enabling consistent multi-axis variation within a unified framework. We train NIV on a newly constructed dataset derived from variable Google Fonts, comprising over one million variation tuples. The resulting model generalizes across unseen codepoints, unseen font styles, high-complexity CJK glyphs, and even out-of-distribution handwriting inputs. The generated outputs are standard variable font files supporting continuous interpolation via existing rendering engines. To facilitate research, we release the dataset, the complete training and inference implementation, and trained models. Beyond typography, our approach demonstrates how structured geometric objects with continuous parametric variation can be modeled and synthesized using neural deformation fields.

Method

Given a static font and a set of desired design axes (weight, width, slant, optical size), NIV predicts per-point displacement fields over the glyph's control points, producing a fully functional variable font.

NIV model architecture NIV pipeline

The NIV model. Given a glyph's control points and axis values, the model predicts per-point displacements that define the variable font variation.

Static-to-Variable Font Generation

Three widely-used fonts that never had variable versions: Arial, Calibri, and Times New Roman, shown as fully functional variable fonts generated by NIV for the first time. The text below is selectable: it is a real vector font, not an image.

Arial
The five boxing wizards jump quickly
Calibri
The five boxing wizards jump quickly
Times New Roman
The five boxing wizards jump quickly

Font Reconstruction

To measure accuracy, NIV was evaluated on held-out test-set fonts whose variation data was stripped before inference. The model reconstructed the variable font from the bare static outlines. Results for three test fonts are shown below.

Commissioner
The five boxing wizards jump quickly
Anek Gujarati
The five boxing wizards jump quickly
EncodeSans
The five boxing wizards jump quickly

Original Test Fonts

Commissioner (Original)
The five boxing wizards jump quickly
Anek Gujarati (Original)
The five boxing wizards jump quickly
EncodeSans (Original)
The five boxing wizards jump quickly

CJK & Handwriting

NIV generalizes to high-complexity CJK scripts (Japanese, Chinese) and out-of-distribution handwriting.

Meiryo — Japanese
茶色のキツネは怠け者の犬を飛び越えた
PingFang — Chinese
敏捷的棕色狐狸跳過了懶狗
NanumMyeongjo — Korean
재빠른 갈색 여우가 게으른 개를 뛰어넘었다
Handwriting
The five boxing wizards jump quickly

Out-of-Distribution Generalization

NIV handles typefaces far outside the Google Fonts training distribution. Gothic and Windings are interactive below; Brush Script is shown as rendered images because its license prohibits redistribution of the generated font file.

Gothic — UnifrakturMaguntia
The quic‌k brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Windings (Symbolic)


Brush Script

Static renders — the generated variable font cannot be redistributed due to licensing.

Brush Script default
wght=0   slnt=0   wdth=0   opsz=0
Brush Script light
wght=−0.7
Brush Script light italic
wght=−0.7   slnt=−1.0
Brush Script bold condensed italic
wght=+0.8   slnt=−1.0   wdth=−0.5   opsz=+0.5

Comparison to Classical Methods

Simple geometric heuristics (horizontal scaling for width, global shear for slant) are common baselines for axis variation. Both fail to respect typographic semantics, while NIV learns the correct behavior from data.

Width axis comparison

Width axis. Horizontal scaling (red) undesirably thickens vertical stems. NIV (blue) widens proportions while preserving stem thickness.

Slant axis comparison

Slant axis. A global shear (red) diverges from the designer's ground truth (blue). NIV (green) more closely matches the ground truth through learned non-linear deformations.

Citation

If you find our work useful, please cite:

@article{benedek2026niv,
  title={NIV: Neural Axis Variations for Variable Font Generation},
  author={Benedek, Nadav and Shamir, Ariel and Fried, Ohad},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.05261},
  year={2026}
}