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Jukka Aalto on font editors
Jukka Aalto, aka "Armadillo" comments from the font design trenches. Here are bits and pieces. - About Ikarus: I've used Ikarus about 10 years ago and it has probably evolved a lot. At that time digitizing was much better method for transferring hand-drawn characters into digital outlines than scanning and autotracing, probably still is, but Ikarus produced really crappy Type1 fonts. Cleaning up the paths in Fontographer was a must. [...] Ikarus was used at least at Monotype and I remember reading an interview of Adobe's designer Carolyn Twombly in which she talked about making drawings for Ikarus.
- About Fontlab: Fontlab is probably the best commercially available. After aquiring Fontographer they implemented it's drawing tools and layer system into FontLab. The only features that were better in Fontographer. FontLab can be very confusing at first, especially all the OpenType features but on the other hand it can take care of many settings automatically.
- About DTL FontMaster: If you purchase the whole set of Masters it will set you back 2038.50 dollars. Compared to 229.10 dollars (Fontographer / FontLab upgrade) it is very expensive. Although FontLab don't have all the features that The Masters have it probably has better value for the money.
- About Fontographer: Small foundries use Fontographer for sure. This explains the sometimes poor technical quality and incorrect naming of PC fonts. FontFont, Emigre, HTF, just to name a few.
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