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="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.