norman@d.cs.okstate.edu (Norman Graham) (04/09/91)
I was considering the purchase of the Univers family, but then I
realized that Univers should be a perfect face for Adobe's new
multiple master technology. That got me wondering: which faces will
we see in MM format? Anyone care to comment? I'll start the list with
the easy ones:
- Univers
- Neue Helvetica
- Futura
--
Norman Graham
<norman@a.cs.okstate.edu> Standard Disclaimer Applies
{cbosgd,rutgers}!okstate!normankibo@jec311.its.rpi.edu (James 'Kibo' Parry) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr9.001714.11592@d.cs.okstate.edu> norman@d.cs.okstate.edu (Norman Graham) writes: >I was considering the purchase of the Univers family, but then I >realized that Univers should be a perfect face for Adobe's new >multiple master technology. That got me wondering: which faces will >we see in MM format? Anyone care to comment? I'll start the list with >the easy ones: > > - Univers > - Neue Helvetica > - Futura I think Univers and Neue Helvetica would be *much* easier to MM-ize than Futura, based on my experience with things like Metafont. The design of some Futura letters changes completely when the weights change. (The "J", "G", and "Q" change their basic shape, and many details change--compre a Futura Light "M" to a Futura Extra Bold "M". Hmm, actually, the Helvetica "a" has a tail that disappears suddenly when the font becomes bold, doesn't it? Do the MM fonts provide for features that can appear conditionally (i.e. switching from one "a" to the other under certain conditions) as Metafont does, or are they mere interpolations/extrapolations between pairs of outlines? I expect that faces designed with Ikarus should prove easy to translate, at least as far as a sliding-scale-of-weights go (after all, that's Ikarus's strength.) I've designed some fonts recently that way (letting the computer calculate interpolation/extrapolation between weights), and while I often do want to touch up details, it is a tremendously useful technique, especially for testing choices of weights... You can usually spot Ikarus-designed faces in listings by the way the several weights of the font align in a perfect trapezoid as everything changes from Light to Black in smooth steps; for instance, Ellington (one of Monotype's newest faces) looks that way. Do I ever wish I had my own Ikarus setup... if my consulting work is profitable enough, Ikarus is on my shopping list. [disclaimer: if I've said anything obviously stupid above, please correct me. I can't pretend to know too much about Ikarus.] -- James "Kibo" Parry kibo@rpi.edu 132 Beacon St. #213, Boston, MA 02116 (617) 262-3922
dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) (04/09/91)
In article <rxbgzr+@rpi.edu>, kibo@jec311.its.rpi.edu (James 'Kibo' Parry) writes: > In article <1991Apr9.001714.11592@d.cs.okstate.edu> norman@d.cs.okstate.edu (Norman Graham) writes: >>I was considering the purchase of the Univers family, but then I >>realized that Univers should be a perfect face for Adobe's new >>multiple master technology. That got me wondering: which faces will >>we see in MM format? Anyone care to comment? I'll start the list with >>the easy ones: > I think Univers and Neue Helvetica would be *much* easier to MM-ize than > Futura, based on my experience with things like Metafont. The design of > some Futura letters changes completely when the weights change. > (The "J", "G", and "Q" change their basic shape, and many details > change--compre a Futura Light "M" to a Futura Extra Bold "M". I once had an opportunity to attend a workshop with Sumner Stone of Adobe where he discussed their methods of type design. They use really naive methods for getting boldface fonts: the medium weight face is drawn by hand, scanned and splines are fitted to it. Other weights are then created by moving the control points for the splines. Period. Occasionally, they may do more subtle adjustments, but that's a rarity. In any event, unless they provide something like decent design-sizing, it seems to me that the whole multiple master idea is a wash. How often do you really need more than two weights of any given typeface? When was the last time you used an expanded or compressed font. (OK, the latter has some uses in graphic arts, in particular, back in my newspaper days, we would fudge headlines by expanding or compressing the typeface. I have fond memories of the day that we accidentally requested 36pt Century schoolbook at 17% instead of 117%. Yeesh, you'd think the typesetters would catch something like that). But anyway, for realistic typesetting, including graphic arts work, a great deal of metaness is not a useful thing and makes the type design rather difficult (few type designers are willing to give up drawing the letters precisely by hand and there's an end to the design process. MF never caught on because for a truly meta design, the designer must abandon the visual process entirely and it's not a trivial endeavor. The end result is that we see a lot of half-baked MF code, designers decide that it's not a real tool and it slowly dies off. The only reason it gets used at all is because it's the only font system with a clean interface to TeX and until Adobe finally released Lucida CM was the most complete math symbol set around (although it's frightening to see the number of people Who Should Know Better mixing cm math with other faces. yuck. But anyway, the whole point of this tirade is that despite Adobe's having some top-notch designers on their staff (well maybe not quite that top-notch. To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed with Stone's work although some of the other designers have done some nice faces. They have a nice sans-serif based on Greek mss that's kind of nice) they still are more than willing to make stupid design decisions with their faces. -dh
amanda@visix.com (Amanda Walker) (04/10/91)
dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) writes:
They use really naive methods for getting boldface fonts: the
medium weight face is drawn by hand, scanned and splines are fitted
to it. Other weights are then created by moving the control points
for the splines. Period.
While this may be true (or may have been true) for Adobe designs, it
is quite obviously not true for their interpretations of existing type
faces. I often manipulate characters as outlines in Illustrator 3.0,
and based on my observations so far, I'd say that the above method is
the exception, not the rule...
--
Amanda Walker amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc. ...!uunet!visix!amanda
--
"Haven't you learned yet that X is a vendor conspiracy to sell more
memory and disks?" --Bob ScheiflerFLEGLEI@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (04/17/91)
I have to agree with the previous post (I lack an include prev msg function) that Adobe is not so naive as to simply interpolate or extrapolate other weights of the font. Having heard Sumner Stone, the former director of their type development division, speak on how he developed the Stone families of faces, it is obvious that they often use interpolations as starting points for intermediate weights which are then modified into something appropriate. For getting the stroke weight right, apparently, interpolation does marvels; getting the feel right is another story.