Font Technology

Computers have changed typography and prepress as well as printing. Typefaces are manufactured by "digital punch cutters" with a PC, not any more by punch cutters. Typefaces are constructed an output by a new technolgy, the so-called fonttechnology. The book by Peter Karow covers the whole area of it. It offers various chapters about (among others) issues like intelligent font scaling, kerning, quality of type, legibility, and problems of different output devices. It is interesting to read about Gutenberg setting, the font market, optical scaling, and last but not least a "hand on" Kanjhi, the Chinese/Japanese Glyphs. Furthermore, Fonttechnology contains a number of valuable and instructive appendices. Almost everything one has to know about type and computers!

Contenu

Directory.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Computer, like you and me.- Competition for the designer.- Putting type through the mincer.- Big shots.- Splines.- Big brother.- Programmers.- Machine control.- The art of math.- In brief.- Open questions to GGL.- Statistics.- Kerning.- Trapping (shrinking and spreading).- Kanji Metafont.- Sukeringu.- Machine formats.- Management.- 3. Typeface Market.- Typefaces are digital.- Standards and work division.- Typeface standards.- Areas for application of typefaces.- Typeface prices.- Typeface market.- Summary.- 4. Font Production in past and present.- 5. Third Abstraction.- Programmer's estimations.- 6. Font Technology.- Hand-digitizing.- Originals.- Designing on the screen?.- Quality.- Database.- 7. Intelligent Font Scaling.- Commentary.- List of instructions.- Rating the various scaling techniques.- Kind of contour description.- Conversion speed.- Memory requirements for a font.- Supported font layout.- Supported font metrics.- General output quality.- Effects of scaling techniques on font production.- Number of available fonts.- Future improvements for scalers: Universal RIPs.- Future screen fonts.- Glossary of instructions.- Employee and employer.- 8. Effects of Rasterization.- Resolution capability of the human eye.- Representation of a typeface.- DTP of the future.- 9. Letter Spacing.- Inter-letter spaces.- Legibility and discriminability.- Traditional spacing.- First step-basic spacing.- Optical center.- Italic typefaces and serifs.- Test texts and alphabet length.- Block composition.- Units.- Kerning - exceptions are becoming the rule.- Kerning tables.- Aesthetic tables.- Long kerning.- Short kerning.- 10. Display, Text and Poster.- Text.- Display.- Notices and advertisements.- Poster.- Graphics.- Resolving power of the human eye.- Graphic arts.- The fiddler.- 11. Type Quality.- What is it that accounts for the quality of a type?.- What is quality?.- Craftsmanship.- A range of design sizes.- Optical scaling.- In conclusion.- 12. Legibility.- What do we mean by legibility?.- Reading as a confirmation of expactations.- Some early approaches to the study of legibility.- Early definitions of legibility and discriminability.- The most important methods of studying legibility and discriminability.- The separation of «legibility» and «discriminability».- Speed-of-reading as a criterion of legibility.- Requirements for a legibility measure.- The standardization of a speed-of-reading test.- Research findings obtained by means of this test.- Effect of variation of interword spaces.- The German version of the speed-of-reading test.- A practical application: Bodoni-Futura.- Effects of stroke thickness.- Effects of slant: upright versus italics.- Effects of typeface family: Roman versus sans serif.- 13. Biblica.- Problem.- Method.- Results.- Discussion.- 14. GoldenType.- 15. Kanji.- One image - one word.- The oldest font tradition in the world.- The virtues of Kanji.- Western graphic symbols.- Ten thousands of characters.- The elements of Kanji.- Classifying Kanji.- Static text composition.- Kanji styles.- The long march of technology.- Tedious font manufacture.- Marketing.- 16. Classifying Typefaces according to DIN.- I. Venetian Antiqua.- II. French Antiqua.- III. Transitional.- IV. Modern Antiqua.- V. Slabserif.- VI. Sanserifs (Gothics).- VII. Display Antiquas.- VII. Scripts.- IX. Graphics.- X. Blackletter.- Summary.- Order of magnitude.- 17. Copyright.- Historical background.- Character Act in Germany.- New and characteristic.- New and characteristic after the Vienna Agreement.- Civil actions as a result of illegal imitation.- Criminal prosecution as a result of illegal imitation.- Additional penalties that can result from illegal imitation.- Copyright protection in Germany.- Protection of the typeface name.- Protection of the trademark.- Designs Act.- Vienna Agreement of June 12, 1973 for placing typeface characters in international escrow.- Placement in international escrow according to the 1960 Designs Agreement at The Hague.- Activities outside Europe.- Licensing.- Summary.- A Typeface Design Grouping according to AFII.- B Congeniality of Print Types.- Method.- Preliminary experiments.- Main test.- Discussion and outlook.- C Glyph Identifier Register.- Acknowledgements.- Preface.- Synopsis of all registered Glyphs.- D Literature.- E Index.