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Poll: What OS and apps do you use for designing type?

Stephen Coles21 Oct 2007

A question raised by a recent discussion: what digital tools are type designers using today? Let's keep the discussion separate, and use this thread only for poll answers.

  1. On what operating system do you do most of your type design work?
    (Examples: Mac, Windows, Linux)
  2. In what application do you do most of your letterform drawing?
    (Examples: Illustrator, Fontographer, FontLab, Corel Draw)
  3. In what application do you do most of your font editing and mastering?
    (Examples: Fontographer, FontLab, DTL FontMaster)

Rules: Please, no discussion here. Only one post per user. Only one answer per question. "Both" is not a valid answer -- I recognize that many type designers use both Mac and Windows and more than one or two applications, but for the purposes of this simple poll, please only respond with the primary OS and apps (one for drawing and one for mastering) that you use for the bulk of your work.

Results and analysis will be published on Typographica.
Thank you for participating!

ebensorkin21 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.2
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.2

4. Other tools: AFDKO

dezcom21 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

raph21 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. Spiro
3. FontForge

Thomas Phinney26 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP SP 2
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FDKO (but Miguel does it)

4. Other tools: Tim Ahrens' RMX tools. I'll also do my own interim masterin from FontLab.

Kristian M21 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)

RachelR21 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio
3. FontLab Studio

kris22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.2
3. -- (Chester masters.)

J Weltin22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)

schriftgestalt22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)

kegler22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

Goran Soderstrom22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.4

Pieter van Rosmalen22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.4

4. Other tools: BitFonter

Christophe Badani22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)

andreas22 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP SP 2
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. AFDKO

4. Illustrator 8, UltraEdit, InDesign 2, some MS tools, ...

MASTERING & EDITING are two very different tasks!
Of couse for editing of the outline data I use FontLab, but mastering is done with a lot of different tools and one main set of these tools is the AFDKO.

Nick Cooke22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. Freehand 10 / FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

paul d hunt22 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP SP 2
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. AFDKO
4. Other tools: TTX

magnus_rakeng22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. Illustrator CS3
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.1

4. Other tools: FontLab Studio 5.0.1 (for drawing)

malcolm22 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP SP2
2. a pencil
3. In-house s/w

4. Other tools: Epson Scanner, Photoshop, FontLab Studio 5.0.4 for drawing
FontLab Studio 5.0.4 for mastering

Quincunx22 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP SP2
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

4. Other tools: Illustrator CS3 (+ pencil/paper of course) for drawing

oogby22 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP SP2
2. Fontlab Studio 5.0.3
3. Fontlab Studio 5.0.3

isaiasloaiza22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio (5.0)
3. FontLab Studio (5.0)

William Berkson22 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP SP2
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.4

blank22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)

pvanderlaan22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.2
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.2

4. Other tools: BitFonter for drawing and mastering, RoboFab for editing and mastering

gaultney22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.2
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.2

4. Other tools: Photoshop CS2 for drawing (if hand-drawn), Robofab, a variety of other Python and Perl scripts for editing and mastering

Stephen Coles22 Oct 2007#

_ _ I N T E R M I S S I O N / A L E R T _ _

Thank you for the response thus far. Most of you dutifully followed the poll structure, but some folks missed the one answer per question rule. If you'd like to list other tools you use, you may put them in a new list item called "Other tools". I have edited the offenders' posts. Feel free to change your response if my edit is inaccurate.

Again, please limit each answer to one primary app for this poll. We can dive deeper in a later survey.

_ _ _ _ _ _ G A M E _ O N _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Bert Vanderveen22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4
2. none
3. none

4. Still working on idea's and design with pencil, thin marker and lots of Moleskine notebooks and various bits of paper.
Mind you, I do have FontLab in it's latest incarnation on my Mac for that special moment when I am going to really start…

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

Mark Simonson22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

Ken Messenger22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4
2. Adobe Illustrator
3. TypeTool 3

Ray Larabie22 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

Down1022 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4
2. FontLab Studio
3. FontLab Studio

I can't really call myself a "professional," though.

Jean-Baptiste Levee22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.4

4. Other tools: AFDKO, Robofab, TTX, FileMaker Pro.

cuttlefish22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.9
2. FontForge
3. FontForge

mrschwartz22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. I don't do my own mastering, but I think it's done in the AFDKO

4. Other tools: Robofab, Superpolator, FeatureProof, TextMate, various small and specific applications...

joshua.erickson22 Oct 2007#

1 Windows Vista
2 Font Creator 5.6
3 Font Creator 5.6

Christian Robertson22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab
3. FontLab

4. Other tools: lots of python

russ_mcmullin22 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP
2. Illustrator CS2
3. FontLab Studio 5

John Boardley22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

other tools: a hammer

Nick Sherman22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab
3. FontLab

boardman22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. Illustrator CS3
3. FontLab

Nick Shinn22 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Stuio 5
3. FontLab Stuio 5

Jos Buivenga23 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.4

fontality23 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

kentlew23 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.3.9
2. Fontographer 4.7.2
3. Fontographer 4.7.2

4. On occasion I will use Font Lab Studio 5.0.2 for some tasks. I don't actually do my own final mastering. This is done by the foundry.

oldnick23 Oct 2007#

1. Windows Vista Business
2. CorelDraw 9
3. FontLab Studio 5

4. I export EPS outlines to Fontographer 4.1.5, generate a PS font, then open that font in FontLab.

andyclymer23 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

patrickg23 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

gargoyle23 Oct 2007#

1. Windows XP
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5

peterbruhn23 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)

Grant Hutchinson23 Oct 2007#

1. Mac OS X 10.4.x
2. Illustrator CS2 *
3. Fontographer 4.7.2 **

* With some exceptions for legacy files, which just work better under AI7
** FontLab Studio 5 is used for any additional OTF shenanigans

Captured from commoncrawl.org on 21 Apr 2015. original URL