Hey, TypeDrawers.
I’ve been learning typeface design for the past 4 years with Glyphs, and since I’m teaching myself, with a small annual income, Glyphs has been fitting my needs well since the interface is intuitive, and I didn’t need to crack open the UFO files.
When I interned with Ben Kiel, I used his hardware with RoboFont and occasionally FontLab.
When looking at type design job postings, the requirements are usually RoboFont and FontLab (except Monotype, which uses Glyphs—seems unusual).
I’m applying to KABK soon; I don’t know their preference in using a font editor program, but I have a feeling they teach using RoboFont.
Should I start using RoboFont, possibly start phasing out Glyphs? I’ve been told that what program I use doesn’t make that big of a difference (especially since Glyphs has 3-axis masters now), but I don’t know how true that is in terms of working and learning with others.
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You should acquaint yourself with what is out there, and only then you can decide best what software suits your needs. With UFO you can switch easily between them.
That’s what they told me seven years ago.
BTW, Glyphs will warn you if you are trying to do something in a UFO file that cannot be saved (non-destructively) in the UFO file format.
That again makes it possible to switch between editors relatively easy. I have written many scripts for FontLab in the past, and for a large part of them I was able to quickly adopt them to RoboFont.
This would me one of the stronger arguments agains FLS
I use that "more space" option on my MacBook but in the iMac 5K this is not needed.
How did you get it to work on Retina ? On my MacBook Pro 15" it looks very jagged.
This is off topic, is there a place to find out how to interpolate glyphs masters with Superpolator3? I might buy it since I could use it with RoboFont too.
For many years, people had virtually no choice of tools because there was just one leading tool on the market: first Fontographer, then FontLab Studio. We now live in a time where there is competition — which is great news, because people think that it’s worthwhile to start developing tools, and see an economic interest in it. So it’s an indicator that the font market has grown.
I don’t think we’ll ever get to a point again where there will be one undisputed leader. In fact, I think we’ll see even more tools on the market, some of them will be web-based (see http://metapolator.com/ ).
And I think it’s a very healthy process. Most likely, one tool will be better in some aspects, another tool will be better in other aspects. Interoperability is the key. UFO is a good step in this direction, and I think we’ll see more work done in making it easier for type designers to be independent of one single tool.
After all, there is no single “do them all” tool for web design and development, and I’m sure there won’t be. For photo editing or illustration, we also see more tool makers enter the market after some decades of undisputed domination by Adobe.
We have one tester of FontLab VI who is working with FontLab Studio 5 and FontLab VI, another who works with FontLab VI alongside RoboFont, and another who uses FontLab VI and Glyphs.
I know that some people, including those who have spoken in this thread, prefer this “switch to” model. Fortunately for them, virtually all type design applications currently on the market are to some (sometimes more, sometimes less) degree inspired by Fontographer and FontLab Studio, so switching is not that hard. There are creative areas such as music production or film editing where this is much less the case, i.e. there are numerous different paradigms at work. Compared to that, most “font editor” type design tools are really quite alike — I never was fundamentally confused when switching between Fontographer, FontLab Studio, RoboFont, FontForge, Glyphs or the upcoming FontLab VI. There are of course many differences, the more you go into details. But with font editors, you don’t really get the “well, oh, where do I start?” moment.
Best,
Adam
Tbh if you don't have a Mac, Fontlab VI can't come soon enough.
And yet the latest Letter Model software you posted screenshots of is built with Python scripting on RoboFont ;p