Does anyone know of some web type store which sells Adobe fonts at a good discount? I need an OpenType "Minion Pro Opticals" package, and it's $259 at adobe.com - a horrendous price!
Thanks,
K
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Does anyone know of some web type store which sells Adobe fonts at a good discount? I need an OpenType "Minion Pro Opticals" package, and it's $259 at adobe.com - a horrendous price!
Thanks,
K
Does anyone know of some web type store which sells Adobe fonts at a good discount? I need an OpenType "Minion Pro Opticals" package, and it's $259 at adobe.com - a horrendous price!
Thanks,
K
Klaus
You might try EyeWire.com, but I suspect they will be the same. Is Minion Pro Opticals the same as Minion Multiple Master? I don't believe I have heard of that font.
Gary
Gary Priester
Moderator Person
Be It Every So Humble...
"Opticals" are ready-made fonts for various sizes - see the OpenFont page at Adobe. I guess *maybe* I could make the fonts I need from the MM font, am unsure. I'll check out eyewire now, thanks.
K
Klaus
Are OpenFonts even available for Windows?
Multiple Master fonts come in one or more of three possible axis, size, weight, and one other which alludes me at the moment.
You can build a font for a specific size. As the fonts get larger, the design of the characters becomes more refined and elegant.
But I'm sure you know this already.
Gary
Gary Priester
Moderator Person
Be It Every So Humble...
Silly me! Yes of course OpenType is available for Windows. I just finished a review of Adobe InDesign for Communication Arts Magazine in which I covered InDesign's implementation of OpenType fonts. InDesign recognizes OpenType fonts and can automatically insert ligatures, expert ligatures, and InDesign's spell-check will recognize the ligatures and insert proper word and line breaks.
It's all pretty amazing.
Gary
Gary Priester
Moderator Person
Be It Every So Humble...
I know, I know, I know. I own InDesign, an awesome (if a bit sluggish) program - that's why I want OpenType fonts. But they're expensive as hell, so far.
K
Klaus,
can you do us a favor and post a pic with one OpenType font sample and one 'normal' sample (of the same font of course) side by side?
IMHO, this is another hype or overkill...unless a direct comparison will convince me...
Remember there will be 99% of the readers in this world who give a damn on OpenType or 'normal' fonts - they simply read the book or magazine or... and enjoy the content, that's it. I guess 80% of the human race doesn't even know anything about fonts. Conclusion: OpenType = OpenHype = Overpriced, or am I totally off the track?
jens
I know your question was not address to me, Jens, but there would be no discernable difference in the fonts. The difference is in the extended characters or glyf alternates.
To quote from my article
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>InDesign's Replace Character palette makes it easy to replace characters and symbols without the need to remember character codes or keyboard shortcuts. If the Ligatures option is checked in the Character dialog box, InDesign automatically applies ligatures available in the font used and words using ligatures will not be questioned when checking spelling. When Adobe Pro OpenType format fonts are used in InDesign the palette will show glyph alternates as a pop-up window when certain characters is clicked on. Becasue InDesign and Adobe Pro fonts use unicode encoding, old style figures and expert ligatures can be automatically applied and words containing ff, ffi and ffl ligatures will break correctly at the end of a line of text returning to individual characters automatically.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Gary
Gary Priester
Moderator Person
Be It Every So Humble...
Jens
I wrote an article on Adobe MultipleMaster Fonts for Designer.com a few years ago that explains the differences between a normal PostScript font and a MultipleMaster font. The attached image from that article shows the differences in the cut of the font as the size gets bigger.
A normal one-size-fits-all PostScript font has to compensate for use in all sizes from 6 point on up. For the font to read a small text sizes the serifs are generally rounded and the overall font is heavied up. Swell for small body copy text but rather clunky and inelegant when used in display sizes. Hence with MultipleMaster fonts, as the characters increase in point size, the rendering of the characters gets sharper and more elegant as you can see in the illustration below.
This is similar to OpenFonts except OpenFonts also come with many more characters.
Klaus, these extra Glyph alternate characters may account for the additional cost as previously you needed to buy the regular font set (Adobe Caslon for example) and then the expert set (Adobe Caslon Expert Regular for example) to gain access to the old style characters and numerals and extended ligatures. The OpenFont Pro font set is like getting all these rolled into one font.
Gary
Gary Priester
Moderator Person
Be It Every So Humble...
[This message was edited by Gary W. Priester on March 12, 2001 at 01:22 PM.]
Gary: I know, I know, I know. But thanks for answering Jens for me!
Jens: that 99.5% of the world's population is ignorant of and unappreciate of issue X is NO argument for not doing OUR very best - if we know better! Typography is such a subtle art where every little bit counts - and the numerous glyphs made possible by OpenType's 16 bit character set (65.000!) as opposed to the regular font's 256 glyphs makes a GREAT advance in desktop typography. So I will eventually pay Adobe's steep asking price, I guess!
Quality costs, Jens - you should know that!
K
Gary and Klaus,
thanks a lot for the info.
However, to put it with the words of my customers:
It won't increase my sales, would it?
Good example: my brother. He is printing his own brochures with ink jet printers and distributes them on trade shows in Europe. All he uses is PageMaker 6.x and Times and Helvetica. And now guess what: He is making millions with these lousy brochures. But his success proves he is right.
Quality does have it's price - correct, I agree 100%. But if the customer doesn't appreciate it, it'll be one for the trash can. And I wouldn't go for this just for pure existance of OpenType.
Hey, BTW, I learned how to kern by hand decades ago.
And something else: do you really believe that a reader will read a newspaper, magazine or book twice in the future only because you use OpenType? Hm, I don't see this happening.
Fonts galore - FIESTA!
Question: do you miss OpenType fonts in this forum, I mean the fonts in the messages could be nicer :-).
Conclusion: in my humble opinion the OpenType is a gigantic marketing hype from Adobe. OK, they look great as what I can see in the example, but who really cares??????? Show me 10 people in less than a minute that care, and I will go and invest into it.
jens
TrueType already supports multiple font files within a family (e.g. Arial, Arial Bold, Arial Bold Italic etc.), optimisation for size and the wide (Unicode) character set, although most cheap fonts are usually <224 characters and 'one file fits all'. What OpenType offers is a cross-platform open standard with more intelligence, that allows embedding in web pages and better formatting, among many other things. Although created by Adobe and Microsoft, it's widely endorsed by other typographic companies as the new standard.
OpenType is therefore likely to be the choice of professional typographers, whose work is judged by the quality of the text. For website creators and those whom a brochure is merely an incidental part of selling other products, OpenType is much less relevant.
Regards - Sean
can XARA handle the OpenType fonts, or do you need a specific application for it?
jens
Gary, do you know of any freeware OpenType fonts I could download and try in InDesign? I've only read about all this lovely new typographical stuff, but I want to try it!
Xara: Does XX support OpentType, provided ATM 4.1 is installed?
Jens: You've written a lot of nonsense in this thread (about your brother's crap being "proven right" because he makes money, etc.) which I'm mercifully ignoring - for now. I'll just say this: I'm my own client - so, for once, this usually idiotic cliche is true: "the customer is always right".
:-)
K
All the MS web fonts are OpenType (Andale Mono, Arial Black, Comic, Georgia, Impact, Trebuchet, Verdana, Webdings), although I'm not sure exactly what features are included. There are also OpenType versions of Arial, Courier, Times and other standard Windows fonts that come with Win2K which _may_ be available for free download on the MS site.
OpenType is native on Win2K, so XX uses them without help from ATM, although I doubt it takes advantage of any of the advanced features. I don't think many apps do so yet.
Regards - Sean
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Good example: my brother. He is printing his own brochures with ink jet printers and distributes them on trade shows in Europe. All he uses is PageMaker 6.x and Times and Helvetica. And now guess what: He is making millions with these lousy brochures. But his success proves he is right. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
To address this comment about Jens' brother's success in business, I stand firmly in the camp of my fellow adman Klaus.
With this kind of logic, who would need PostScript fonts? Jens brother could be just as successful with the old bitmap fonts, eh? And who needs color printers, Jens successful brother could print out his cheap ad materials on an Epson dot matrix printer.
As one who spent 25 plus years doing TV and print advertising, and another 15 years as principal in my own graphic design company, working with the best type and the best European-trained typesetters to create the best looking advertising and design, I can tell you that good type can make a difference in how a product is perceived by the public.
In the early days of laser printed PostScript type, we designed a series of brochures for Butterfield & Butterfield, a San Francisco based international auction house. When the president of Butterfield's saw our estimate for type (to be provided by a high quality typesetting house) he balked and said we could use their laser output type instead and no one would know the difference.
Fine we said. Have your designer output this page of copy to these specifications and we will have our type house output the same copy on their machines.
We presented both samples of text to the president of the company who looked first at one and then the other, shrugged his shoulders and said, you win. I can see the difference.
If you look at a display-sized headline (36 points and larger) created with a one-size-fits all PostScript font and then compare it to a headline created with an optically sized font, you won't have to ask if it is worth it. The character and elegance of the headline of type will answer the question.
Even if the reader of the piece cannot put her or his finger on it, good typography will have a very subtle effect on his/her perception of the product or service being written about. Good typography and type design can influence the perception of quality in a product. And in the case of the auction business, where the quality of merchandise being auctioned has to be perceived for what it is, good typography can make all the difference in the world.
And finally, Jens, as you are one who appends "Creative Director" as a title to his name, I expect a lot more respect for the art of typography.
Gary
Gary Priester
Moderator Person
Be It Every So Humble...
To all that Gary writes in answer to Jens's folly, I can only add two things:
Halleluhah!
- and Amen.
K
Snooping at Microsoft's type section yields tons of info about OpenType, including free software and instructions for how to make and tweak font files:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/...name=%20&fsize=
OpenType is a feast for lovers of type!
K
Gary,
my brother doesn't run an auction business, he is manufacturing handmade pottery and planters in Vietnam among others. The only one thing the customers are looking for is PRICE, nothing else.
Wrong, he couldn't do it on a dot matrix, because he needs to show product pics.
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As one who spent 25 plus years doing TV and print advertising, and another 15 years as principal in my own graphic design company, working with the best type and the best European-trained typesetters to create the best looking advertising and design, I can tell you that good type can make a difference in how a product is perceived by the public.
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True. ** IF ** you are dealing with customers who want to market high priced products.
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The character and elegance of the headline of type will answer the question.
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I agree. But only some customers look at this way. And if they don't want to pay for that extra, it's their decision.
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Even if the reader of the piece cannot put her or his finger on it, good typography will have a very subtle effect on his/her perception of the product or service being written about. Good typography and type design can influence the perception of quality in a product.
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I agree. I keep telling the customers the same arguments over and over.
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And in the case of the auction business, where the quality of merchandise being auctioned has to be perceived for what it is, good typography can make all the difference in the world.
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Of course, if we are talking about high priced items.
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And finally, Jens, as you are one who appends "Creative Director" as a title to his name, I expect a lot more respect for the art of typography.
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First of all, a title is nothing else than an empty blurb on a piece of paper. I give a damn for a title, I had been forced to use a title 'because the US customers want to see a title on a biz card'. I swallowed that.
I personally appreciate good type, but 90'% of the customers don't. I just communicated what my customers perceive...
BTW, I am one of the German trained type setters, but that was long time ago...
As Sean wrote:
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OpenType is native on Win2K, so XX uses them without help from ATM, although I doubt it takes advantage of any of the advanced features. I don't think many apps do so yet.
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my question remains: which applications do take advantage of OpenType? Freehand, Illustrator, XARA X, PageMaker?
And: HOW can I identify OpenType fonts on my machine with w2k pro?
Let me know, I am curious.
jens
ok guys, since no one can name the applications that make use of the advantages of OpenType, it seems I am correct with my assumptions: it's a great hype. Let me guess: the only way to use the benefits of OpenType from Adobe is to purchase and learn and use a brand new Adobe software.
So all you are doing here is discussing a phantom, and it is pretty much useless for the world if it'll run only on Adobe products.
I will continue to submit my files to a professional printing company and let them do the professional typesetting on Linotype Hell Stations, because they KNOW what they do.
No hype anymore, ok?
jens
If you use Win 2K you've already got at least 15 OpenType font families that come with it. They have an 'O' icon in explorer and are described as OpenType when you double-click them. Other than InDesign and other Adobe products, I imagine that Word and Draw will be the first to use OT-specific features, if they don't already.
The importance of OpenType is that it solves a number of problems relating to non-Latin scripts and unifies Type 1 and TrueType technologies. It's more a compatibility upgrade than for quality - that's just a bonus. Also, for people that buy several versions of professional fonts for use at specific point size, OT may be an efficient and cost-effective solution. For most others there's no need to make a special effort to upgrade because it will be automatically included with the next computer they buy.
Regards - Sean
Jens, my friend, you are an ignorant fool in this respect. (It's probably your silly anti-Adobe prejudice whith gets the worsts of you.) InDesign supports OpenType, other apps will do so soon. OpenType provides for superior type - in the hands of designers. Like me.
K
Klaus,
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InDesign supports OpenType, other apps will do so soon.
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Hm, pretty long list of apps you posted here. Let's talk about it when ALL apps will support OpenType and Adobe lowered the price, ok?
I have more than 300 Adobe Type 1 fonts here, and the least I can expect is an upgrade, but no, Adobe wants to cash in. I can wait until the prices will drop considerably.
And I want to issue a bad tasting lemon for this software list: it's the shortest list I've ever seen.
Congrats for the 'Klaus Lemmon' :-), the nobel prize for hype thingies.
ciao,
jens
what you have to say is a thousand times more important than the font you say it with.
Will
Jens: "And I want to issue a bad tasting lemon for this software list: it's the shortest list I've ever seen."
Out of logical necessity, there will always be ONE person or program or product which takes the FIRST step on a new road with new technologies. And since when did being first become a Bad Thing?
This is my last word on this topic. Jens, you persist in being a fool regarding this issue.
K
K
Things seem to have been getting a bit heated here, so I hope my little addition will pour oil on troubled waters rather than fan the flames...
Most folk I know still treat a computer like a typewriter. They use hyphens for dashes and feet or inches marks for quotes. Many of them think I'm splitting hairs when I point this out but, once you learn that there's a better way, substitutes start to look wrong! (Although it's pragmatic to accept some compromises for web use, which is effectively limited by a smaller safe character set.)
As with simple things like quote marks and dashes, so it is with the progressively finer and finer points of typography. Choice and quality of fonts, line spacing, kerning and so on... The more you learn, the more it matters, because it does make a difference! Otherwise everything might as well be typed in Courier with nothing but characters straight from the Qwerty keyboard...
Exactly the same thing holds true for my own area of music. Until I started typesetting music with Sibelius (incomparably the best program for the job), most printed music looked like, well, music... Now much of it looks, well, bloody awful! So I've learnt something, but I'll probably still be horrified when someone who's been at it longer than I have takes a good look at what I'm doing now.
What satisfies some folk clearly wouldn't satisfy me, and what currently satisfies me might not satisfy Klaus, but implying that the best typography is somehow less important than the best graphics seems illogical. Learning is a lifelong process, and I'm sure we've all been horrified to think back on work that we've so proudly presented to the world even in the recent past! Let's all be friends here and accept that, although everyone has to be pragmatic about what he/she can do or is prepared to accept, none of us can know or do everything better than everyone else!
Oh, and while I'm on the subject, Opera renders correctly coded n and m dashes as hyphens, but that's just BTW!
Peter</p>
Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>