TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Wed Nov 20 11:44:52 EST 2024
FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE
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Optical scaling (MM versus OT)
A discussion on Typophiles regarding Adobe's discontinuation of MM (multiple master type 1 format), and its sales pitch for OpenType. In general, the type designers liked the optical scaling possibilities of MM. They are not so hot on OT in this regard. Michael Schlierbach's testimony there: "When I began using type, I started with MM. It's wonderful how you can work with optical scaling. I cannot understand why that technology has been given up. Optical scaling on OT, even the Adobe Opticals aren't nearly as fine. I would wish very much, to have a technology that makes it able to use fonts that have their own optical specifics over 6 or 8 sizes (or more) like in ancient lead-type, combined with the ease of working with a computer and for example InDesign, that does it automatically. So a good quality of type could return. With MM that was possible (a good worked font provided of course). Some (or most?) optical axes had non-linear scaling measures, and so a very fine adjusting to optical issues was possible. The few "opticals" of OT-Fonts are far away of that skill. I would wish that these possibilities would come back." James Montalbano reports: "MM as a font development tool is a big part of our work flow. I'm holding on to Illustrator 10 since the new CS does not contain any MM controls. So I hope so long as AI10 works, I'll have MMs." |
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Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ https://luc.devroye.org ⦿ https://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html |