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Poll: What OS and apps do you use for designing type?
Posted by Stephen Coles in
21 Oct 2007 — 8:19pm
21 Oct 2007 — 8:19pm
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.
- On what operating system do you do most of your type design work?
(Examples: Mac, Windows, Linux) - In what application do you do most of your letterform drawing?
(Examples: Illustrator, Fontographer, FontLab, Corel Draw) - 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!
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21 Oct 2007 — 8:36pm
1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.2
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.2
4. Other tools: AFDKO
21 Oct 2007 — 8:45pm
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
21 Oct 2007 — 9:17pm
1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. Spiro
3. FontForge
26 Oct 2007 — 9:04pm
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.
21 Oct 2007 — 11:29pm
1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
21 Oct 2007 — 11:56pm
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio
3. FontLab Studio
22 Oct 2007 — 12:35am
1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.2
3. -- (Chester masters.)
22 Oct 2007 — 12:51am
1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
22 Oct 2007 — 12:56am
1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
22 Oct 2007 — 1:29am
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
22 Oct 2007 — 1:33am
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
22 Oct 2007 — 1:55am
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
4. Other tools: BitFonter
22 Oct 2007 — 2:05am
1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
22 Oct 2007 — 11:03am
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.
22 Oct 2007 — 2:33am
1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. Freehand 10 / FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
22 Oct 2007 — 2:33am
1. Windows XP SP 2
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. AFDKO
4. Other tools: TTX
22 Oct 2007 — 3:13am
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)
22 Oct 2007 — 3:52am
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
22 Oct 2007 — 4:53am
1. Windows XP SP2
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
4. Other tools: Illustrator CS3 (+ pencil/paper of course) for drawing
22 Oct 2007 — 6:30am
1. Windows XP SP2
2. Fontlab Studio 5.0.3
3. Fontlab Studio 5.0.3
22 Oct 2007 — 7:20am
1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio (5.0)
3. FontLab Studio (5.0)
22 Oct 2007 — 7:49am
1. Windows XP SP2
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
22 Oct 2007 — 8:10am
1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
22 Oct 2007 — 8:25am
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
22 Oct 2007 — 9:09am
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
22 Oct 2007 — 9:33am
_ _ 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
22 Oct 2007 — 10:03am
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
22 Oct 2007 — 10:33am
1. Mac OS X 10.4
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
22 Oct 2007 — 10:44am
1. Mac OS X 10.4
2. Adobe Illustrator
3. TypeTool 3
22 Oct 2007 — 12:21pm
1. Windows XP
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
22 Oct 2007 — 1:13pm
1. Mac OS X 10.4
2. FontLab Studio
3. FontLab Studio
I can't really call myself a "professional," though.
22 Oct 2007 — 2:16pm
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.
22 Oct 2007 — 4:29pm
1. Mac OS X 10.4.9
2. FontForge
3. FontForge
22 Oct 2007 — 4:45pm
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...
22 Oct 2007 — 5:18pm
1 Windows Vista
2 Font Creator 5.6
3 Font Creator 5.6
22 Oct 2007 — 6:02pm
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab
3. FontLab
4. Other tools: lots of python
22 Oct 2007 — 6:36pm
1. Windows XP
2. Illustrator CS2
3. FontLab Studio 5
22 Oct 2007 — 6:42pm
1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
other tools: a hammer
22 Oct 2007 — 7:02pm
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab
3. FontLab
22 Oct 2007 — 8:30pm
1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. Illustrator CS3
3. FontLab
22 Oct 2007 — 9:37pm
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Stuio 5
3. FontLab Stuio 5
23 Oct 2007 — 1:18am
1. Mac OS X 10.4.10
2. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
3. FontLab Studio 5.0.4
23 Oct 2007 — 3:57am
1. Windows XP
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
23 Oct 2007 — 6:40am
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.
23 Oct 2007 — 7:04am
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.
23 Oct 2007 — 7:59am
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
23 Oct 2007 — 8:23am
1. Mac OS X
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
23 Oct 2007 — 9:03am
1. Windows XP
2. FontLab Studio 5
3. FontLab Studio 5
23 Oct 2007 — 10:36am
1. Mac OS X (10.4.10)
2. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
3. FontLab Studio 5 (5.0.4)
23 Oct 2007 — 10:36am
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