Also, not sure if it matters but the actual .otf names are:
Loose.otf
Loose-Bold.otf
Loose-Italic.otf

DId you check the "Font is Bold" and "Font is Italic" check boxes for the appropriate fonts on the first page of the Font Header?

Hello James, thanks for your reply!
Yep those have been checked (see images).

I've been experimenting with the typeface - it seems now that for other people it works just fine - so something might be wrong with my PC or Illustrator/Photoshop (where i'm testing them). I've tried to clear my font cache but that doesn't seem to work...

any tips?

What software do you use to manage your fonts?

Not using any font management software - I'm on a Vista machine and it looks like something is (indeed) going wrong with the font cache. On other machines it appears to work just fine! I finally got it to work ok but when I updated the (now 4 weights) font files I had a similar issue: Illustrator and Photoshop both did show the font with the 4 weights, but a number of kerning details and even a few glyph changes that I made weren't visible. Even when I deinstalled the fonts, both Illustrator and Photoshop still had the font in their list (after restarting them of course).

In this situation I usually restart the machine, wipe the fonts from the Fonts folder and then copy the latest versions back in there.

Thanks! Is that restart and then wipe the fonts & reinstall them?
Or do you wipe them, restart, and then reinstall?

I did try restarting the PC and a few times it worked ok, but not every time.
Restarting the machine (in my case) does take quite some time so doing that after each change is a rather tiresome process though?

Yeah, it's clumsy. I'm on Windows 7 and even sometimes when deleting fonts from the system they stay there even though they're not showing. Try both ways.

I'm on Windows 7 and use suitcase fusion 3 to manage my fonts and have had success with this method:

Install fonts via Suitcase Fusion.

When I need to update the font, I delete the current version from Suitcase.

Close the program.

Close FMCore.exe (via Task Manager)

Create the new font.

Reopen suitcase and reinstall the font.

This is the best method I have found that doesn't require me restarting my computer.

Thanks for the comments Bendy & James. And thanks for the suitcase fusion 3 tip! I'll try that method, sounds like a better way than continuously restarting my system!

@JamesT: thanks for the suitcase fusion tip. On my system I don't seem to be able to actually delete the typefaces from within suitcase... did you mean deactivate or rally install / delete? I see the option in the menu but it is disabled somehow?

Did you install them as system fonts or in the "font library"? I've always just dragged the font over the "font library" location to install them.

Thanks James, I'll try that. I had them in the system fonts directory and you don't seem to be allowed to delete them from there. Let's see if this works!

I would suggest changing the version number and regenerate the fonts.

James's suggestion works pretty goo!
I tried that as well before jmontalbano, but that didn't do the trick. It sees the new version number but sometimes still prefers the old version over the new one...

Glad to hear it worked.

Yeah man, me too, thanks for all the tips!

One other question regarding font families:
in Fontlab you can set the Font Info and Styles, but have I correctly assumed that this is restricted to Regular / Bold / Italic / Bold Italic?

And if you want to add a Thin or Light variant, you'll need to basically create a new family called FONT Thin or FONT Light?

If you want to add a thin or light or book or demibold or whatever, you would change the "weight" selection. Then change the names to "Loose-Thin, Loose Thin etc."

I did that and had "Loose" in the Family Name (first field).
But then my software (Illustrator / Photoshop) didn't regognise it as a separate weight and I had two 'regular' versions conflicting with each other.

I've now set it as follows, but the result is (obviously) a separate family:

Any suggestions? You guys are awesomely helpful!

Family Name: Loose

PS Font Name: Loose-Thin

For all the weights, change "Menu Name:" to "Loose" without adding any weight or style name

I've also found this post that explains a bit more:

http://forum.fontlab.com/fontlab-studio-tips-and-tricks/font-family-nami...

It doesn't seem to work yet though. Also I didn't notice at first that it's possible to actually change the text at the Style Name field. It's a drop down menu, but you can type there as well.

Update: after numerous restarts, wiping the cache, etc etc I got it to work. The only oddity is that in the Font List is that the order is as follows:

Thin
Thin Italic
Light Italic
Light
Regular
Italic
Bold
Bold Italic

Not sure why it lists the Light Italic before the Light as only exeption, but pretty content that it's working!