Cheaper Adobe Fonts?

[Klaus Nordby]

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 Nordby]

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

[gwpriester]

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...

[Klaus Nordby]

"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

[gwpriester]

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...

[gwpriester]

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...

[Klaus Nordby]

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

[jens g.r. benthien]

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

[gwpriester]

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...

[gwpriester]

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.]