Leon Sans

Leon Sans is a geometric sans-serif typeface made with code in 2019 by Jongmin Kim. It allows to change font weight dynamically and to create custom animations, effects or shapes in the Canvas element of HTML5. He designed the font to celebrate his newborn baby Leon.

There are live examples at https://leon-kim.com/examples/

And website at https://leon-kim.com/

What is special?

The font is made with code, it has coordinate values of the drawing points for each glyph. With the coordinate values, you can create custom shapes, effects or animations.

- Drawing animation

- Weight change

- Wave

- Metaball

- Plant

- Colorful

- Color pattern

Usage

Download the minified js file in dist folder and include it in your html.

<script src="https://github.com/cmiscm/leonsans/raw/main/js/leon.js"></script>

Generate LeonSans and draw it in the Canvas element of HTML5.

let leon, canvas, ctx;

const sw = 800;
const sh = 600;
const pixelRatio = 2;

function init() {
    canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
    document.body.appendChild(canvas);
    ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");

    canvas.width = sw * pixelRatio;
    canvas.height = sh * pixelRatio;
    canvas.style.width = sw + 'px';
    canvas.style.height = sh + 'px';
    ctx.scale(pixelRatio, pixelRatio);

    leon = new LeonSans({
        text: 'The quick brown\nfox jumps over\nthe lazy dog',
        color: ['#000000'],
        size: 80,
        weight: 200
    });

    requestAnimationFrame(animate);
}

function animate(t) {
    requestAnimationFrame(animate);

    ctx.clearRect(0, 0, sw, sh);

    const x = (sw - leon.rect.w) / 2;
    const y = (sh - leon.rect.h) / 2;
    leon.position(x, y);

    leon.draw(ctx);
}

window.onload = () => {
    init();
};

For the drawing animation, include TweenMax (JS animation library) in your html.

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/gsap/2.1.3/TweenMax.min.js"></script>

And update all the drawing values from 0 to 1

let i, total = leon.drawing.length;
for (i = 0; i < total; i++) {
    TweenMax.fromTo(leon.drawing[i], 1.6, {
        value: 0
    }, {
        delay: i * 0.05,
        value: 1,
        ease: Power4.easeOut
    });
}

Option list

Name	Type	Description
text	string	The text that needs to be shown.
size	integer	The size of the text.
weight	number	The weight of the font: 1 - 900. [Default: 1]
color	array	The colors of each characters. [Default: ['#000000']]
colorful	array	The colors for colorful effect. [Default: ['#c5d73f', '#9d529c', '#49a9db', '#fec330', '#5eb96e', '#fc5356', '#f38f31']]
tracking	integer	The spacing between the characters of a block of text. [Default: 0]
leading	integer	The distance between each line of text. [Default: 0]
align	string	How the text content of the element is horizontally aligned: left, center, right. [Default: left]
pathGap	number	The gap between each coordinate of the points on a line of each character: 0 - 1. [Default: 0.5]
amplitude	number	The amplitude of the wave effect: 0 - 1. [Default: 0.5]
maxWidth	number	The width of the text sentence.
breakWord	boolean	Words break when reaching the end of a line. [Default: false]
fps	number	The FPS for the wave effect. [Default: 30]
isPath	boolean	true to get the coordinate values of the points on a line of each character. [Default: false]
isWave	boolean	true for the wave effect. [Default: false]

Properties

Name	Type	Description
lineWidth	number	The thickness of lines of the character.
scale	number	The scale of the character. scale is 1 when the font size is 500.
drawing	array	The drawing object values for each character. 0 is the beginning of the animation, 1 is the end of the animation state.
data	array	An object of the raw data for the text.
paths	array	The coordinate values of the points on a line of each character.
drawingPaths	array	The coordinate values of the points on a line of each character to draw the drawing animation in WebGL. It has 1px distance of each path.
wavePaths	array	The coordinate values of the points on a line for the wave effect.
rect	Object	The size of the text and its position: {x: x position, y: y position, w: width, h: height}.

Methods

Name	Description
on()	Add update event.
off()	Remove update event.
position(x, y)	Set the position of the text.
updateDrawingPaths()	Update paths for drawing in WebGL (PIXI.js). It's very expensive, only call when it needs.
drawPixi(graphics)	Draw text in WebGL with PIXI.js.
draw(ctx)	Draw text in the Canvas element.
drawColorful(ctx)	Draw the colorful effect.
wave(ctx, t)	Draw the wave effect.
pattern(ctx, w, h)	Draw rectangle shapes at each path point
grid(ctx)	Draw grid for each type.
point(ctx)	Draw circles at each drawing point and lines for each type.
box(ctx)	Draw outline box for the text.
reset()	Reset all the values.
dispose()	Dispose.