In a perfect world there would be no need for updates. The first version of everything would leave no room for improvement. However, we live in a less-than-perfect world.
The improvements in this revised version of Font Pro #2 stem from two sources. First, the tools used to construct typefaces keep improving. When Font Pro #2 was originally constructed, the latest version of Fontographer, the tool used to design and generate the typefaces, was version 3.5. As I write this, the version is 4.0.4, and the new version has new features which make some of the aspects of typeface design easier to do.
At least as important as the changes in tools is the change in the skill of the designer. Practice improves most skills, and since the publication of Font Pro #2, I have had the practice, designing the typefaces of Font Pro #3.
What Is New
1. The most obvious change in this revision is the set of new typefaces in the 50+ More Fonts folder. There were 150 typefaces in the main collection of the original version of Font Pro 2 and a bonus folder of 31 additional faces. The revision keeps the original 150 together, and adds into a 50+ More folder. Most of the bonus fonts from the original version are still here, but they have been supplemented with about 20 completely new typefaces. While the original version could barely claim "More than 175 typefaces", this version can easily claim "More than 200 typefaces."
Overall the 50+ More group is a mixed bag, with some fonts which are marginal and others which are equal in quality to anything in the basic collection. Those who like pictorial fonts should be especially pleased with the new additions. New fonts feature snow flakes, incised stars, insects, and more pointing fingers.
2. Most of the work in this update has been devoted to improving existing typefaces. The improvements fall into several categories.
(a) A new feature of Fontographer 4 was a "Clean up Paths" command. It maintains the outline shape of the character, but repositions the command points of that shape to allow for better hinting and printing. One of the main results is that screen fonts generated by Adobe's Type Manager (if one uses Type 1 fonts) or TrueType rasterizers should appear crisper on the screen. This feature alone would justify an update.
(b) Another new feature of Fontographer 4 is that it allows one to adjust the spacing between characters more accurately. Most of the typefaces have had changes made to the spacing of characters. The results tend to be subtle, but there has been substantial improvement of this aspect of the design.
(c) In the original version of Font Pro #2, kerning was adequate but left a lot to be desired. It may still leave a lot to be desired, but it has also been tremendously improved. The number of kerning pairs has been increased by about 75%. To see the benefits of this improvement, one needs a program which supports kerning. As time goes on, that support will become standard in word-processing programs.
(d) I have made many minor changes, such as repositioning accents, redrawing characters which just did not look right or had obvious flaws, and adding additional characters, an average of about three per typeface. I have avoided the temptation to redraw extensively for two reasons. First, if one begins to tamper, it is easy to make changes which make the end result worse. Second, I would never make the design choices now that I made four and five years ago. If I started to redesign those old typefaces, the process would be never-ending, and it would be simpler to just construct a new typeface.
3. Included in this version are most of the original Fontographer files used to construct these typefaces. If you want to make alterations to any of the typefaces for your own use and you have a copy of Fontographer, you can alter them. (However, be aware that all software and computer code, including that used to print the typefaces, is copyrighted, and that I do register my copyrights at the Library of Congress. Violation of copyright law may make you liable for criminal/civil penalties. The fact that I register copyrights means I can get lawyers to take the case on a contingency basis. Do not steal from me.)
These Fontographer files are unlikely to be useful to the vast majority of those who purchase this CD-ROM. My personal reason for including them is that they consume so much storage space that I find them a burden to keep on disk and diskette.
Conclusion
I am confident that this upgraded version of Font Pro #2 is much improved from the original. However, anyone who has ever worked with computer programming knows that the attempt to correct one problem can easily introduce another one. As a result, everything that was on the original version of Font Pro #2 is also included on this CD-ROM. (One of the great things about a CD-ROM is that it holds so much.)
August 1994
Robert Schenk
Ingrimayne Type
Rensselaer, IN 47978-0404
Auldroon/Eldroon
Late 19th century type design was influenced by medieval styles, and many designs from that period show that influence. The design of Auldroon and Eldroon have been influenced by the medieval vision as reflected in 19th century styles. They are decorative and distinctive, but exactly which display purpose they best satisfy remains a mystery to me. Nonetheless, I like these typefaces.
Balboat (Plain, Bold)
Balboat is a plain calligraphic typefaces with very long ascenders and descenders. It is sans serif and has no slant in the letters. To be readable, one should use it at 18 point or above. At 12 point the print is very small. It adds variety to the calligraphic offerings on the disk. Balboat was a late addition to the original edition of Font Pro Vol 2. It was developed further for Font Pro 3, where it was included in the main collection of 125 typefaces.
Chessterton
Chessterton is a dingbat font of chess characters which can be used to display a chess board. You may have to hunt for all of the characters, but they are all there, most in more than one place.
ComputerBugs
ComputerBugs could be called "Hexapods for the Summer." It is a pictorial font of insects, mostly butterflies and moths. Though a few are based on actual species, they were drawn freely and are not anatomically correct. The pictures provide an easy source of clip art when one wants a spring or summer theme.
FansiPensle (Plain, Bold)
FansiPensleTwo (Plain, Bold)
These are attempts to create interesting script typefaces. I was not completely happy with my first variant, FansiPensle, so tried some different ideas and came up with FansiPensleTwo. I then decide quit on this attempt even though I had not gotten the effect I wanted. Though they may be useful for some purposes, these typefaces never got to where I wanted them to get.
Handana (Plain, Bold)
Handana is an informal calligraphic face with elements of script. It fits between several categories and fills a gap in the collection. It is more elegant than some of the hand-writing typefaces such as PlainPensle, but it is more spontaneous and natural than Hermainita or even Xaltid.
Handana was a late addition to the original edition of Font Pro Vol 2. It was developed further for Font Pro Vol 3, where it was included in the main collection of 125 typefaces.
InternationalMorseCode
InternationalMorseCode allows one to easily convert any message into International Morse Code. There is also an American Morse Code which was used for telegraphs in the 19th century, but with the passing of the telegraph it has died out. International Morse Code was used in the early days of radio, and is still occasionally used.
Kwersity (Plain, Bold)
Kwersity is a geometric, serifed typeface with strokes of uniform weight. It has a very high x-height and small serifs. Its circular elements are almost rectangular. This type of style has been popular recently for display purposes, perhaps because its simplicity suggests modernity.
KwersityWider (Plain, Bold)
A great many of my typefaces come from playing with previous designs. One way I often do this is to make a typeface more readable, more like a text face. Looking a Kweristy, I wondered what it would look like if it were a bit wider, with a somewhat smaller x-height. KwersityWider is the result. Though it is more text-like than Kwersity, it still is basically a display face.
Kwodsity
This is another typeface which is descended from Kwersity. It has heavy feet, and makes an interesting display face.
LaserTrain (Plain, Bold)
One of the first typefaces I designed was ChooChoo, in which letters rode on train cars. I do not know where the idea for this typeface came from. It was created as a type 3 typeface with Fontographer 2.4.1, and because I relied heavily on composite characters and strokes, it did not seem worth the while to convert it to Type 1 when Fontographer got the capability to produce Type 1 faces. LaserTrain is derived from ChooChoo. It takes the train element and expands on it. A user suggested that I add smoke to the typeface, and the bold version is the result. (A PostScript printer will work best with this typeface because I put some of the design in places TrueType (and Adobe's Type Manager) do not want things to be.) Laser Train resembles a toy train more than a real train.
LastBigFling (Plain, Bold)
LastBigFling was going to by my last attempt to design something for Font-Pro Vol 3, but it was omitted from that CD-ROM. Here it is in all its glory and fussiness to grace this revision of Font Pro 2. It is a calligraphic typeface with lots of curves and wiggles. It turned out to not be the last fling, because after I designed it, I modified it to produce Swirlity. (See below.)
LibraryOne
LibraryItalic
Library was one of my early typeface designs. It is a display face with each letter on a book cover. The style of letters is different in the upper and lower case keys. There are two versions, and the differ in the way the books are angled.
(There are a collection of about twenty other early typeface designs hidden in a subfolder. I do not think they are especially useful, but I have often found my judgement of what is useful is not shared by others.)
LineDrive (Plain, Bold)
This typeface is based on a typeface which I saw illustrated in a book about 19th century type design. I did not attempt to do an exact reproduction, but rather used the general design of letters. I added the bold version because it was easy to do. The original never caught on, so this version probably has limited usefulness.
In revising Font Pro 2, I have redone the spacing between letters on this typeface. The end product works much better.
MyhotaHatched (Plain, Bold)
MyhotaHatched is a variation of Myhota produced with a font manipulation program called Incubator Pro 2 (by Type Solutions, Inc) Though the program showed a lot of promise, it had rough edges, and apparently is not being developed further. To get a useable typeface, one almost always must clean up the output from Incubator, which, though time consuming, is still considerably easier than designing from scratch.
MyhotaHatched is wider and has longer ascenders and descenders (which means it has a lower x-height) than Myhota. Unlike Myhota, it can be used for text purposes if one wantss a sans-serif text font.
PointedDesert and SimpleHands
Font Pro 2 has a dingbat font called Phyngern which contains a variety of pointing fingers. PointedDesert and SimpleHands are also dingbat fonts of pointing fingers. They have much less variety of style than Phyngern, but they develop the little style they do have, mostly by pointing in a variety of directions.
RedLetter
It was fun to create this novelty alphabet. In late 1988 or early 1989 I noticed that the circular form of the sickle and the linear form of the hammer could be used to form all the letters of the alphabet. I released the result as a promotional typeface in an effort to sell other typefaces, first in Type 3 format as Stalingrad, and later in Type 1 format as RedLetter. If you collect public-domain and shareware typefaces, you probably have seen this typeface. This version has been re-worked and improved and is no longer shareware or promoware.
The typeface was constructed as an interesting design problem, not for any particular use. It is quite unlike anything else.
SaloonExt
SaloonExt is an original design with an "Old West" look and feel. A more condensed version of this typeface is in the main collection of 150 typefaces.
The original version of SaloonExt was released as promoware. This version has been re-worked and improved, and is not shareware or promoware.
Sansville (Plain, Bold)
I derived Sansville from Swanville several years ago. It is a bold, sans serif face. It has problems and I do not think that trying to fix them is worth my effort. However, it may be of use to someone somewhere.
SchneeFlaken, SchneeFlakenTwo
SchneeFlaken, which might be called "hexapods for winter," is a typeface of snow flakes. Many of them are stylized, but some do follow the rules of snow flake construction. (In a true snowflake, branching takes place at 60 degree angles.) It is a ready source of clip art when a winter theme is needed.
SchneeFlakenTwo rotates the flakes by 30 degrees.
Sdrawkcab
This is a novelty font derived from TiredOfCourier. It allows one to create mirror writing, that is, writing which looks correct when viewed in a mirror. All the letters have been flipped. Though it is not something most people will ever use, if you do want it, here it is.To understand why it is named as it is, print out the name ╥Sdrawkcab╙ using the typeface and hold it up to a mirror.
SlimpiSquare
This is one development of a simple sans-serif typeface which was included at the last minute on the original version of Font Pro 2. Part of it was developed for Font Pro 3 as PeterPierre. The other part is developed here. It is a very condensed font, and the interior counters are squared off.
It is useful for display at large point sizes.
StarsAndStripes
StarsAndStripesTwo
StarPieces
Fontographer 4 introduced a star took, and I took up the challenge to see what one could do with it.
One thing one can do with considerable work is to construct stars which appear to have relief. After one has constructed such stars with various number of points, one can superimpose them in variety of ways for other effects. StarsAndStripes shows some of the possibilities. StarsAndStripesTwo flips them, so that the light and dark interior regions are reversed.
StarPieces contains a variety of other star possibilities.
If these three star typefaces are not enough, there are two more on Font Pro 3.
Swirlity (Plain, Bold)
Script fonts are an area which I have found frustrating; I have been largely unhappy with my efforts. Swirlity is one of my better scripts, and may be the best on Font Pro 2. It took an old (16th or 17th century) calligraphic script style and combined it with the caps for LastBigFling. The result is a distinctive and decorative script. It is not the most readable typeface, but if one want readability, one avoids scripts.
UUeirdie (Plain, Bold)
This typeface was derived from Asterx by expanding it and altering the serifs. I wanted to see what would happen if I made Asterx more text-like.
I had no special use in mind for it, but it is interesting in its weirdness.
WaterWorksCaps (Plain, Bold)
WaterWorks is a novelty font in which the letters are formed from pipes. It does not contain diacritical characters, not does it contain all the punctuation marks. This should be no problem because no one would ever want to use more than a few letters at a time. It was based on items I constructed in making mazes.
Zarrow
Zarrow is a novelty font made up of arrows and other items from archery. An earlier version of this typeface has been released as promoware. This version has been re-worked and improved, and is no longer shareware or promoware.
Zcript (Plain, Bold)
This typeface is closely related to PlainPensle-Italic in the shapes of the letters and overall design, but the shape of the writing pen is very different.
ZimpleBlack
This is a very simple, black-letter typeface.
ZirkleOne (Roman, Bold)
Zirkle has sentimental value to me because it was the first typeface I designed. The design of the capital letters begins with a circle and cuts away parts and adds interior lines to form letters. It is interesting, but not very easy to read and probably not very useful.
An earlier version of this typeface has been released as promoware. This version has been re-worked and improved, and is no longer shareware or promoware.
Serpent
Serpent is a novelty font which I drew in a couple of hours to release as a promotional font several years ago. It is unlikely to be of much use (though I suppose one could write hate letters in it). If you keep track of public-domain and shareware offerings, you may have seen it.
BiteOfApple
There are a variety of encoding schemes for typefaces in the computer world. All put the standard typewriter keys in the sample place (from code 32 which is space through 126 which is ~), but they differ on the 0 to 31 range and the above 127 range. In particular, the Macintosh encoding differs significantly from the MS Windows encoding. (There are also Unix encodings which are not available on the CD-ROM.)
One of the characters in the Apple Character set (but not in the MS Window's encoding) is an apple with a bite from it. Occasionally I design this character, often to share the style of the typeface. BiteOfApple collects most of these in one place, and also gives a flipped image of each.
(There are several characters in the standard MS Windows encoding which are not standard for Macintosh. These characters hide in the codes between 1 and 30 on the Macintosh, which are control keys. They can usually be found with KeyCaps by holding down the control key. For some reason some of them get lost in the TrueType versions of some typefaces, but, if they are there, they can always be found in the PostScript versions.)
