New software!

Another exciting day! I received two pieces of software today. The first (and probably most important to visitors of this site :-) is the Macintosh FontLab 3.0. This is a very sophisticated program; just a casual trial today proves that there is a lot of power under the hood. While I probably won't completely give up Fontographer, I'm going to start migrating all of my final output to FontLab.

The other software arrived in the mail from Sweden. ReBirth RB-338 - an analog synthesizer and drum machine in one. Here's another program with a lot of power under the hood. I was especially impressed by the fact that I can route the audio output of ReBirth into my Cubase sequencer - and it's digital the whole way!

In more font related news: I'm finishing up the long-awaited demo of Nu Sans 9.0. I just have a few characters to get straightened out and then I'll upload it to Info-Mac before the end of the month. I'm still debating whether I should put it on my web page before it gets posted on Info-Mac.

Don't quit your day job?

I've had a pretty busy and (somewhat) productive day. I tried increasing the icon sizes from the main page from 32 pixels square to 48 pixels square. That worked OK, but everything else needed to be increased as well. Unfortunately, even at the highest resolution on my iMac, the whole page doesn't display without having to scroll - back to the drawing board, I guess. I might be able to keep the bigger icons and then just modify the rest so that it doesn't take up so much space.

I also put in a lot more work on Tiny. I've created an outline font to be used as a base for the fully hinted TrueType font. My goal is to have something that looks great on screen at those tiny point sizes, but can also be used for display purposes. So I spent a few hours adjusting side bearings and trying out different stem weights.

I'm trying to keep this page updated daily, as Scooter Graphics is my only job. That's right, I've done the proverbial worst thing in the shareware world; I've quit my day job :-). I've found that I can make just as much money working 4 hours a day at home as I could working 8 hours a day 20 miles from home. Less wear and tear on my truck and my kitty gets to see me more. It's the best of both worlds!

Receipt released

Well, I decided to make Receipt just a plain ole' TrueType/PostScript font. A demo version is now available. I'm currently filling out the character set which should make it easier to use in non-US systems. (Of course, accented characters are not really a possibility!)

Receipt

From the receipt of one of my favorite diners comes the inspiration for "Receipt" (clever name, huh :-). Receipt is a two weight font. Right now it's just a bitmap font, but I intend to create a MM font of each weight to simulate the wear and tear of the ribbon. Why? Because I can!

Future Sans

I again worked on the Future Sans bitmap fonts. I Straightened out some of the curves and created an italic for the 18 pt font. It's starting to look like the future :-)

In the future, all fonts will be hard to read

I worked on the Future Sans bitmap fonts some more. This time, I came up with a regular weight at 18 pt (double 9 pt Espy Sans - which was supposed to be the default font view under Copland). The result is OK, but needs some more polishing:



I'm thinking of eliminating some of the curves. At 18 pt, they don't really add much readability and they tend to close up the letters. I'll post the results later...

Future Sans

As I was working on Tiny (a new bitmap font at 6, 7, and 8 pt, available in regular and bold), I got to thinking in the other direction; as monitors and video cards start supporting higher and higher resolution, the problem of the very fonts we use to navigate the system become more accurate. Most Mac monitors are set to 72 ppi by default. Imagine the effect of doubling the ppi (to 144 ppi - about half the resolution of a 1st generation laser printer). Everything is now half as big as it used to be. Heck, I need to put my glasses on when I'm running 1024x768 right now on my iMac!

So I came up with a solution: Future Sans. This is another bitmap font (I've got bitmaps on the mind these days!) that is meant to be used as a system font at 24 pt. My goal was to take the 12 pt Espy Sans and interpolate it up to 24 pt. As I was working on this, I discovered that the result was a bit different than 24 pt Nu Sans (my scalable version of Espy Sans). Looking at other fonts (such as Charcoal, Helvetica Bold, etc.), I found that most fonts are not optimized for 24 pt display.

Now maybe you don't think that this is much of a problem - after all, there's anti-aliasing, right? The problem with anti-aliasing is that it "fuzzes" the edges of the letters to achieve an effective doubling of the resolution. My studies have shown that fuzzy text is harder to read at text sizes than non-fuzzy text.

So here's an example of how I see Future Sans being used as a system font:

Important upgrade to Nu Sans

I've just released an important upgrade to Nu Sans. Version 8.5 adds the Euro symbol and is now compatible with Mac OS 8.5. A Windows version will be available shortly, but for now, this is a Macintosh exclusive release. Check it out!

1998 3rd Quarter Update

Okay, another long stretch without any updates to the log! I'm sorry :-( I have been busy, however. I just bought a house in Spokane, finished up two semesters at C.W.U. and started a new job selling insurance.

As far as the font-side of my life: I'm working on a new version of the Newt color scheme (to go with the Nu Casual font) and an update to Nu Sans. I'll probably wind up doing a small caps and old style figures for Nu Sans when I'm through with the update. There was also a request for a "light" version of Nu Sans. Maybe I'll do that, too.

Worked on Nu Serif

• Finished these uppercase characters.
  
• I will work on Nu Serif again when I get back to school,
  since I'm packing everything up right now.
  

Worked on Lower Narrow

• This is narrow version of Lower. It is a bit different from Lower-Regular but it still bears a family resemblance.
  
• The next thing to work on is finishing up Lower-Regular (e.g., finishing up the whole character set, polishing up the spacing, etc.)
  

Worked on Lower

• Lower is based on an experimental typeface designed by Herbert Bayer in 1925. Bayer's typeface was firmly rooted in the Bauhaus, with strict geometrical construction. My interpretation is meant for more general use than Bayer's original typeface. To do this, I have started by using consistent x-height and overshoot to create a regular weight version of Bayer's font (Bayer's original font was very bold, almost a black weight). This font will be suitable for body text as well as headline use. I plan to extend the design by creating light and bold version as well
  
• I have tried to keep all the distinguishing features of Bayer's original typeface, while bringing the design up to date. For example, the "r" in Bayer's version terminates in a straight line, mine is a slight curve. Tell me what you think.
  

What I've been up to lately...

You might be wondering what I've been up to lately. Well, I just haven't had a lot of time to keep up this log. But I have been working on a number of projects. Some of them are:

• Another update to Nu Sans. This time, I am basing Nu Sans on Espy Sans 10 pt instead of 12 pt. I have just finished the plain version and expect to post something soon for you to download.
  
• A lowercase font.
  
• I've released several different version of Virtue. The latest one is 1.9, which is available now from the web page.
  

Worked on eCasual Headline

• This is a tall casual font based on the kind of handwriting used for some of the banners on eWorld. I plan to create a regular text version as well as the tall version.
  
  
  
• As you can see, it needs some work :-) I'm going to straighten out a few characters (like the "T", "N" and "A" and tweak the spacing a bit until I get something worth releasing to the general public.
  

Released Jubal Sans (Formerly the Multiple Master Font)

You can see and download it on the Jubal Sans page.

Worked on The Multiple Master Font (Working title)

• Well, I added international characters in the regular axises. It's getting pretty close to being a complete font. As soon as the font is fully functional, I intend to release it as beta demoware.
  
• Still need to come up with a name for this font. I'll post some pictures here sometime this week and you can take a look.
  
• I have been doing other font stuff between this post and the last one. Check out Virtue. This is a free font that is my representation of what I think Apple's "Charcoal" font should look like. It is only available to Mac users.
  

Worked on the Be Font

• Well, I'm at it again... The system font from the BeOS is only a bitmap, so you can't use it to print out. I'm creating an outline font so that it can be used on the printer. So far, it looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me :-)
  
  
  
• I need to work on these characters: A, V, W, b, d, e, p, q, s, v, w, x, y and z. Basically, these characters don't look the same weight as the rest of the font.
  
• In the bitmap font, the V and Y are the same - weird, huh?
  

Worked on Spokane

Spokane is a bitmap font I'm working on that has the look of a light Chicago. I plan to incorporate this font into my next Kaleidoscope Color Scheme.

Nu Casual

Worked on Nu Casual

• Basically spent the whole day doing one bitmap size - 16 pt. Now all that is left is the 14 pt and then the font is ready to distribute! Hopefully, I'll have that by tomorrow. Fontographer is NOT the best tool for working with bitmaps. Unfortunately, it's the only one I have :-(
  
• Can you believe it? What Apple calls 18 pt Casual is actually 20 pt and what they call 10 pt is actually 14 pt!!!! What were they thinking? I guess they needed to fool the Newt into thinking that it was dealing with a smaller font than it actually is. Weird. If someone has a better explanation for why they did this, drop me a note.
  

Nu Casual

Worked on Nu Casual

• Found a really cool method to do screen dumps on the Newton to the Mac. This has streamlined the bitmap process quite a bit. Now, instead of squinting at the screen, I can just dump the contents of the screen to my Mac and then resize it.
  
• Finished a bunch of the sundry characters and stuff:
  
  
  
• Don't know what I'm going to do about the accents. They fit fine on a 18 pt bitmap on the Newton, but they aren't going to do the same on the Mac. I'm thinking I'm going to have to translate 18 pt to 22 pt or something like that. Weird. Their was a similar problem with Nu Sans Casual when I was working with the Espy Bitmaps. I guess Apple wants to have screen fonts that are much larger than they should be!