Type Tips – Open Type

by Ilene Strizver, founder of The Type Studio

If you’re a graphic designer and work on a Macintosh system, chances are you typically use PostScript® Type 1 fonts. If you primarily do web design, or work on a Windows machine, you probably use your share of TrueType fonts. Both formats have their advantages and disadvantages, but now there’s OpenType – offering the best of both worlds, and much more. New Features OpenType is a kind of superset of Type 1 and TrueType font formats, with added enhancements. It is backward-compatible with applications that support Type 1 and TrueType fonts (including design applications and printer drivers), and you can mix OpenType fonts with other font formats without a problem. OpenType also offers some remarkable new features that require OpenType-compatible applications. (If you’re using the latest version of your operating system and applications, you may already have this capability – check with the manufacturers to be sure.) Three of these new features that are of particular benefit to designers are multi-platform support, expanded character sets and glyph substitution. Read more about the features…

Editor’s Note: Ilene Strizver, founder of The Type Studio, is a typographic consultant, designer and writer specializing in all aspects of typographic communication. Read more about typography in her latest literary effort, Type Rules!, published by North Light Books. This article was commissioned and approved by Monotype Imaging Inc.

Friday Battles

Coudal Partners launched a serious Friday afternoon diversion last year with the very special Layer Tennis. Every Firday, it pits two creative types against each other in a design battle with a writer providing colorful play-by-play on the action as it happens. The basic premise is that the competitors swap a file back and forth in real-time with only 15 minutes to add their own touch. Most of the work is down in Illustrator and Photoshop and that only makes sense since Adobe has become a sponsor this year. The match lasts for ten "volleys" and after much commentary from the guest writer and the Season Ticket holders a winner is declared.

This week pits Mitch Ansara (Space Sick) against Rod Hunting with pLAYER-by-pLAYER commentary by Matthew Baldwin of defective yeti.

It's fun… it's raw… and it shouldn't be missed!