Why are there so many composite glyphs in Ed Interloc? Wouldn’t it have been more logical to have separate sets of “left” and “right” glyph components, and construct the “ligatures” from these on the fly?

Likely an FDK’n limitation re. GPOS in FLab, maybe a performance issue? I’ll point Tal to this thread.

Si

Tal is, unlike the Seahawks, a World Champion.

Chester,
Don’t you think that was kind of a low blow? Neither are the Giants or Jets.

ChrisL

:^D

Here’s my picks as the top 3 teams in the OTL (OpenType League)

The Lino-Lions - Hudson & Zapf
The San Jose Serifs - Bickham & Phinney
The New York Souvenirs - Leming & Benguiat

Which one deserves the top honors is not for me to say.

Si

Hudson & Zapf

Twardoch & Zapf, surely.

And look out for the Toronto Thunder :P

>Twardoch & Zapf, surely.

You could be right, but I think they were both involved.

>And look out for the Toronto Thunder :P

There’s always one or two teams that fly under the radar, that could be one of them.

Also Tal mailed back to say he’ll post re. EdInterlock ’tonight’

Cheers, Si

Twardoch & Zapf, surely

zapfino
http://www.twardoch.com/adam/project.php?pid=0049

and i think Christian Robertson’s team (whatever he decides to call it) should be put on your radar as well.

Chris, I was not meaning to be (too) bitchy. It’s just that Mr Daniels has the Seahawks helmet as his identifier, and for a spell also had the SuperBowl XL logo alongside it. I notice that the SuperBowl logo has disappeared, while the helmet remains, which says to me that Mr Daniels is a true fan of his beloved team, and I applaud that. He doesn’t need the Seahawks to be the Galactic Champions for him to love them. (As a Montrealer, and once fan of the Expos, I know all about sports-based disappointment.)

Thanks Si.

Thanks Chester, for the kind words. And apologies to Adam re the the incorrect credit on Zapfino.

Why are there so many composite glyphs in Ed Interloc? Wouldn’t it have been more logical to have separate sets of “left” and “right” glyph components, and construct the “ligatures” from these on the fly?

Not really. That would be the logical approach if all the letterforms had uniform widths, but that’s not the case. For example, the I doesn’t occupy the same width as the O. So the M in a MI ligature must be different from the M in a MO ligature. As Ken worked through the task of drawing all 1,400 ligatures, he would adjust forms as needed to make each individual ligature look perfect. Automatically assembled ligatures would not have had that same attention to detail and the organic qualities of the face would have been lost. In cases like this, automation always yields to aesthetics.

Because the decision was made to hand build all the ligatures, we never really looked into assembling them on the fly. I have some ideas about how that could be done with a combination of contextual lookups, kerning and lots of alternate glyphs, but it would be a big can of worms.

Chester,
Si left me (I am a life-long Steeler fan) a message of congratulations on the Steelers win within minutes of the games end. He did not hedge or woulda-coulda-beened me or anything (and there were plenty of officials screwing up to complain about). He took it like a man and offered his congratulations like a man. I admire him for it and gladly allow him to wear his Seahawks helmet with pride for as long as he wants.

ChrisL

Thanks Tal for the explanation. I should definitely add that Local Gothic is my current favorite fun font and I’d like to thank House, Adobe, Tal and the other designers who are willing to let us use their creations to test, improve and demo our products.

Cheers, Si

The Lino-Lions - Hudson & Zapf
...
Twardoch & Zapf, surely.

Si was probably thinking of the Apple AAT version of Zapfino, which Ross and I produced. Adam was responsible for the OT version with its clever pseudo-random stuff. Of course, no mention of either current version of Zapfino should exclude Akira Kobayashi, who worked on the design revision with Hermann.

If I were to form an OT team for Si’s list, I think it would have to be the Hebrew Hounds with Ralph Hancock, or maybe the Torah Tigers. All this fancy Latin display typography is a nice light pre-season workout, but I really don’t think you’ve broken a sweat if the game doesn’t require additions to Unicode, changes to the way VOLT works, changes to the way Uniscribe works, and six months in the locker room listening to people shout about why Phoenician is or is not the same thing as Hebrew.
_

Anyway, kudos indeed to Tal, and congratulations to whoever won that silly game with all the padding. I leave you with a real sport. Oh my goodness, they’re not wearing helmets! Somebody stop them before someone gets hurt!

Si, your “current favorite fun font”, Local Gothic, is actually not published by House, Adobe, or Tal, but by Orange Italic, Christian Schwartz’s foundry. Tal was the genius behind the OT “random” programming.

And as for all of the stuff about the Steelers and Seahawks: I was being flippant.

The problem with joking about football, Chester, is that some people really do take the game seriously. :^P The use of emoticons helps. :^P Although then you have no chance at dry humor. :^P

C’mon. It’s a GAME!!! :^P

Tiffany, thanks for the advice. It’s such a silly game, it’s really hard to believe that anyone does take it seriously. :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P :^P

Thanks Chester, Tal arranged the free license that lets us use the font in demos and install it in our lab for testing. Thanks should of course go to Christian too. As this thread has become a bit of an Oscars acceptance speech I should all thank the Academy and all of the people I’ve forgotten to mention so far.

And don’t forget to thank Chad Lowe, or people will think that you don’t love him. (That has happened to so many of us in our Oscar-acceptance speeches!)