Typophile

Ikarus Question?

John Savard

I think I have a question about Ikarus, but having a difficulty in expressing the question, I am putting the question in the form of a statement.

One of my earliest posts to this forum was a complaint about certain characteristics of the True Type and Adobe Type 1 font formats, as well as digital font creation tools like FontMonger and Fontforge. I felt it would be helpful if one could specify the locations of points digitally after working them out on paper, and that it would be nice if one could choose conic sections instead of always only Bezier curves.

Someone responded with the correct deduction that I am no professional type designer.

But looking randomly at other sections of the site besides the forums, I saw something mentioned in the wiki which I researched further elsewhere.

A program that started out using circles (but later added Bezier curves as an option) also had other interesting features. One could copy and paste pieces of a character, such as the serifs. One could mark "guard bands" that would not be squeezed as one adjusted the width of the character as a whole.

This is, of course, Ikarus from URW; it sounds like something that has the features needed to make creating type on a computer a manageable task. Of course, it is no doubt expensive to license, but it appears to be worth the price, being used by the major typefoundries.

Has it really been largely superseded by today's font design programs, or are its extra features not really that important... am I mistaken in thinking that the designers working for the companies that use this technology have an advantage?

Ramiro Espinoza

Hi there,

If you want to experiment with this sort of splines, you can download and install the free version of DTL´s FontMaster. Ikarus Master, the latest incarnation of Ikarus is part of the suite.

http://www.fonttools.org/

The free version allow you to create and generate font with up to 256 characters. More than enough to play around and learn something about it. The workflow is rather different than in FontLab and Fontographer, so you will have to get accustomed to it (download the manual also).

As an alternative, if you happen to have a FontLab license, you can use its "Sketch Mode" where PS splines are converted to an imitation of Ikarus splines. It is not as precise as Ikarus, but it worth trying if you like the enviroment...

Cheers.

Ramiro.

James Montalbano

If you have high quality analog artwork, then hand digitizing with something like an Aristo tablet and Ikarus makes sense. Drawing directly on-screen using Ikarus splines is a nightmare.

Ikarus was the first font development program I worked with but I would never go back. IMO bezier curves are much easier to handle than Ikarus splines.

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