Typography forever
Writing helps us communicate—in the past, today, and in the future.
Writing helps us to communicate - in the past, today and in the future.writing can convey feelings, evoke moods or attitudes to life in us. A chalkboard for "Fresh vegetables" is simply more credible than a marble plaque advertising fresh vegetables in Roman letters. A restaurant sign designed in English cursive promises us a different culinary experience than one written in Fraktur. Could we trust a daily newspaper printed in the childish-looking handwriting of the editor-in-chief? As we want and need to make our messages ever more precise, we need ever new and diversified message carriers, i.e. typefaces. There should be at least as many different fonts as there are feelings and moods - in other words, an infinite number. as long as we communicate by means of language and need or want to convey texts in some form, we will need new fonts. Only on the day when we are able to communicate telepathically will we no longer need new scripts. However, nobody can say today how telepathic communication will work in the future. Perhaps this will also happen by means of written or pictorial characters, in which case someone will have to design these characters too. But typography will always exist.
Tools for font designersFont-Studio - the old-timer from Letraset - is still popular because the program is very stable and fast. Unfortunately, the program is no longer distributed and no longer maintained.
Fontographer from Macromedia is probably the most widely used workhorse for font design. It is also quite robust, but unfortunately does not run under Mac OS X, but only under the Classic emulation. Fontographer is still sold, but is no longer maintained, which is really unfortunate.
FontLab is the latest font software with very extensive options. The training period is correspondingly longer. It is possible to develop OpenType fonts in FontLab. This makes the program the best investment for the future.
All programs exist in versions for different operating systems. All three programs can (unfortunately) be used to open and (illegally) modify existing fonts. There are also other font design programs, but these are intended more for professional use. For the sake of completeness, it should also be mentioned that there are semi-automatic font scanning programs and similar kerning programs.
Script
... is the generic term for all writings that attempt to imitate handwriting. Before book printing was invented, scribes laboriously copied books by hand in so-called "scriptoria". This made books a luxury item and prevented the masses from acquiring education and knowledge.
Legal matters
Anyone who buys a font does not acquire the design, but only the limited right of use. As a rule, the font may only be
be used on a computer. It may neither be used free of charge nor
be redistributed for a fee. As a rule, the document may only be passed on to a repro house in order to carry out the current order. The person who passes on the document for this purpose must ensure that the copy is destroyed again after use.
Note: A type designer has to design over 250 characters per typeface. Assuming an average working time of just one hour per character, that's 32 working days or six weeks. For a normal set of four fonts, we are talking about half a year's work. Anyone who uses fonts without paying for them should always bear this amount of work in mind. (gw)
Gert Wiescher
Tools for font designersFont-Studio - the old-timer from Letraset - is still popular because the program is very stable and fast. Unfortunately, the program is no longer distributed and no longer maintained.
Fontographer from Macromedia is probably the most widely used workhorse for font design. It is also quite robust, but unfortunately does not run under Mac OS X, but only under the Classic emulation. Fontographer is still sold, but is no longer maintained, which is really unfortunate.
FontLab is the latest font software with very extensive options. The training period is correspondingly longer. It is possible to develop OpenType fonts in FontLab. This makes the program the best investment for the future.
All programs exist in versions for different operating systems. All three programs can (unfortunately) be used to open and (illegally) modify existing fonts. There are also other font design programs, but these are intended more for professional use. For the sake of completeness, it should also be mentioned that there are semi-automatic font scanning programs and similar kerning programs.
Script
... is the generic term for all writings that attempt to imitate handwriting. Before book printing was invented, scribes laboriously copied books by hand in so-called "scriptoria". This made books a luxury item and prevented the masses from acquiring education and knowledge.
Legal matters
Anyone who buys a font does not acquire the design, but only the limited right of use. As a rule, the font may only be
be used on a computer. It may neither be used free of charge nor
be redistributed for a fee. As a rule, the document may only be passed on to a repro house in order to carry out the current order. The person who passes on the document for this purpose must ensure that the copy is destroyed again after use.
Note: A type designer has to design over 250 characters per typeface. Assuming an average working time of just one hour per character, that's 32 working days or six weeks. For a normal set of four fonts, we are talking about half a year's work. Anyone who uses fonts without paying for them should always bear this amount of work in mind. (gw)
Gert Wiescher
