Kern Deco

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Kern Deco

Post by William »

The Kern Deco font grew out of some experiments made as a result of the following thread about kerning.

viewtopic.php?t=1804

The font is available as a free download.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/KERNDECO.TTF

The font now has its own thread in the Gallery.

As of earlier this morning the font which is available at the link above is version 0.051. This differs from the version 0.05 which was previously available because an LW kerning pair has been added. I had been using the font and tried the word ALWAYS and realized that the LW kerning pair needed adding to the font.

Readers archiving the earlier version into another folder rather than deleting it may like to rename the file to have KERNDECO005.TTF as its name.

Examples of the font in use are available as follows.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/snowball.PDF

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/k ... amples.PDF

William Overington

14 July 2007
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Post by William »

This morning I produced a pdf as a learning example of the possible use of the Kern Deco font on a poster.

The following text was used.

INITIATIVE FOR LOCAL ARTISTS

I have uploaded it to the web.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/initiative.PDF

The AT in INITIATIVE and the CA in LOCAL and the TS in ARTISTS all kern automatically when the Kern Deco font is used in a software application which supports kerning.

I used Serif PagePlus 10. Kerning is also supported in some other software packages, such as Microsoft Word, yet not in others, such as Microsoft WordPad.

William Overington

10 October 2007
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Post by William »

Earlier this morning I tried producing an italic version of my Kern Deco font.

I had not produced an italic font previously, so I have learned a lot along the way.

Here are links to the results.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/KERNDECI.TTF

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/k ... italic.PDF

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/i ... italic.PDF

I started with a copy of the Kern Deco font. I used the Glyph Transformer on all of the glyphs at once. I had tried a few experiments before.

Here is a transcript from my notes file which I produced as I went along.

--

Try to make an Italic version.

Start by saving a copy of KERNDECO.TTF as KERNDECI.TTF.

Try to make an Italic by using the Glyph Transformer Italic feature.
Use 26.5700 degrees as that is the closest to arctan(0.5) that can be achieved.
Tick the checkbox for "Set font subfamily and font design to italic".
Leave the other checkbox unchecked. It says "Preserve side bearings".

Use Autonaming. Keep the name as Kern Deco. Note how the italic information is included elsewhere.

Validation produces lots of errors about off-curve extreme coordinates.

Validate with automated correction.

The font is now validated.

Look through the kerning. It looks good. The existing kerns seem to have converted well.

Are any additional kerning pairs needed? VE is not needed.

Try installing the font.

--

In fact I took far longer looking through the glyphs and studying the kerning than I took to produce the font.

I calculated the angle using Microsoft Calculator in View Scientific mode. If one ticks the Inv checkbox before clicking the tan button, then the arctangent is calculated rather than the tangent.

I chose the value of 0.5 for the argument of the tangent on the basis that I wanted the right-side of the A of the regular font to become vertical in the italic font. That implied sending the top point of the A 1024 font units to the right. The top point of the A is 2048 font units above the base line. 1024 divided by 2048 is 0.5. I was not entirely sure that that would produce the effect of the right-side of the A becoming vertical in the italic font, but it did.

In producing the kerndecoexamples_italic.PDF document I did need to take care that the right-hand side letter in the heading on each of the two pages was not clipped. Indeed, on both pages of the source document for the kerndecoexamples_italic.PDF document I needed to widen the text frame on the page and then centre it again. The original non-italic version had text frames set to the pre-set margins suggested by the particular desktop publishing package being used (Serif PagePlus 10). However, adding the word ITALIC to the heading made the space used for the text wider. It was just circumstance that made that an issue in the title lines, it could have happened with any line or lines in a collection of lines of text. These two example pdfs do both use text which is centred. If using the font with whatever formatting settings, please take particular care to make sure that there is no right-side clipping of the overhanging part of the right-most glyph in each line. Hopefully this will not be too big a problem as the font is likely to be used mostly as a display font rather than for a block of text.

William Overington

24 October 2007
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Post by William »

Reading through the thread I noticed a link to the following document.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/snowball.PDF

I have now produced the following version with the italic font used for the heading.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/s ... italic.PDF

William Overington

24 October 2007
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Post by steveb »

Lots of tasty illogicalities in your font - why should B have such a large indent when the U has none, and the T with its spike is odd - still, who cares?! It looks like a lot of fun. I'd use it myself for only one or two words, rather than for a headline sentence. Thanks for making a download available.
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Post by William »

Thank you for your comments.

> Lots of tasty illogicalities in your font - why should B have such a large indent when the U has none, and the T with its spike is odd - still, who cares?!

I have not trained as a type designer: my fonts are perhaps what is known as "outsider art". There are quite possibly things in the designs which a formally trained type designer would know not to do!

> - why should B have such a large indent when the U has none, ...

The B was designed by adapting a copy of an O.

In my notes, made as I went along, I had the following.
Try a B by adapting a copy of O.

This may need redesigning.
Such a comment, whilst not unique in my notes, is rather unusual.

Sometimes a design so noted does get redesigned later, this time it did not.

I think that I was wondering whether a more conventional B should be designed rather than a direct adaption of an O. The large indent is so as to distinguish the B from a D. The U could not be confused with another letter. I had not thought of comparing the design of the B with the design of the U until you gave me the idea to do so, the U was added several glyphs after the B was added.

> ..., and the T with its spike is odd -

Yes, I suppose that it could look that way starting with looking at the whole font now that it is published.

Here is a transcript of what happened.
Thursday 5 July 2007

Start a new font Kern Deco 001 in KERND001.TTF.

Use metrics 2048, 0, 0.

Use the A and the V from AV kern test for packages and the disc from Stardisc as the O.

Set space and non-marking return to 2048.

Set .notdef to 2048 wide, solid square.

Kern AV and VA to -768 each.

Kern AO as -256.

Kern OA as -256,

Kern OV and VO as -256.

Try a T by adapting a copy of V.

Which pairs need kerning?

TA at -512

TO no.

TV no.

AT at -512

OT no

VT no

Try a P by adapting a copy of O.
I was learning about kerning and I suppose that I was trying to keep the theme of the triangles used for A and V as much as possible.

> It looks like a lot of fun.

Indeed. As I proceeded I did not know how it would turn out. It started with A, V and O and then it was a matter of trying to complete the alphabet in as similar a style as possible.

It was fun producing the font and I find that it is fun when using it because kerning pairs which I put into the font get used. For example, yesterday I used the word ITALIC and the TA kerning pair was used.

The font has 76 kerning pairs within it. Some are potentially so rare as to be almost impossible to use. Yet maybe some of them might be used in practice nonetheless, such as the LW kerning pair in the word ALWAYS, so they are there in case they are needed.

William Overington

25 October 2007
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Post by William »

I have now updated the two Kern Deco fonts, Regular and Italic, to version 0.052.

The links for downloading now supply the updated versions.

If any collector wishes to keep the older versions of the fonts rather than discarding them, he or she might like to move the files from the fonts folder of his or her local computer to another folder and rename the old files to become KERNDECO0051.TTF and KERNDECI0051.TTF before installing the new versions.

The changes are that each font adds three new kerning pairs, namely PS, FS and JS, each at -512 font units.

The PS is added so that the word SHOPS is set stylishly. Setting the word shops in lowercase shows the difference.

At present, I do not know of any words which could use the FS and JS kerning pairs: I realized that if FS or JS were used while typesetting a word, then kerning would be desirable, so, whilst producing the new versions of the fonts so as to include the PS kerning pair I thought that I would add them in, just in case they are ever needed.

This is what I like to call a software unicorn situation.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/euto0008.htm

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/euto2001.htm

William Overington

25 October 2007
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Post by William »

I found a potential use for the FS kerning pair and have made a pdf.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/admotifs.pdf

William Overington

25 October 2007
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Post by William »

I have produced a Kern Deco Outline font.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/KERNDECA.TTF

The font can be used alone: it can also be used, in an application program which supports layers, in conjunction with the Kern Deco font so as to produce a two-colour lettering display.

The method of producing the Kern Deco Outline font was to start with a copy of the Kern Deco font and then to use the Glyph Transformer to perform on all glyphs Thin(32, 32) followed by Hollow(64, 64). Validation showed one glyph with problems, namely the glyph for the ? character: these problems were resolved by manual adjustment.

William Overington

26 October 2007
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Post by William »

I have now produced the italic version of the Kern Deco Outline font.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/KERNDECB.TTF

The method of producing the italic version of the Kern Deco Outline font was to start with a copy of the italic version of the Kern Deco font and then to use the Glyph Transformer to perform on all glyphs Thin(32, 32) followed by Hollow(64, 64). Validation showed one glyph with problems, namely the glyph for the ? character: these problems were resolved by manual adjustment.

William Overington

26 October 2007
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Post by William »

I have been experimenting using FontCreator 5.6 and I have produced a Kern Deco Shadow Layer font.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/KERNDECS.TTF

The idea is that this font is for use in a background layer behind some text set in Kern Deco or Kern Deco Outline when using an application program which supports layers. The colours used in the two layers would be different. Ideally a desktop publishing package would be used, though the Microsoft Paint program can be used to try out the font if so desired, though the kerning effect does not occur with the Paint program on this computer.

I produced the font by starting with a copy of Kern Deco Italic, naming it Kern Deco Shadow Layer in a file named KERNDECS.TTF.

The two Italic flags were unchecked and the Regular flag checked on the Format Settings... Metrics panel.

I then scaled all glyphs horizontally by a factor of 100% and vertically by a factor of 50%, about the fixed point (0,0). The Preserve Side Bearings checkbox was left unchecked.

The font validated.

I chose 50% as a test. Maybe a different value would produce a better effect.

The font could also be used in a three-layer situation together with the Kern Deco font and the Kern Deco Outline font.

William Overington

26 October 2007
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Post by William »

Early yesterday evening I produced an experimental font.

It is Kern Deco Shadow Layer 2. I made it from a copy of Kern Deco Shadow Layer by applying the same transform again.
I then scaled all glyphs horizontally by a factor of 100% and vertically by a factor of 50%, about the fixed point (0,0). The Preserve Side Bearings checkbox was left unchecked.
In fact, the transform was still set up in the Glyph Transformer from before.

Certainly I should perhaps have started from a copy of the italic version of the Kern Deco font and applied a vertical scaling of 25% rather than reprocessing a copy of the Kern Deco Shadow Layer font. However, I was just experimenting.

Anyway, I thought that perhaps some readers might like a copy of the font.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/KERNDECT.TTF

William Overington

27 October 2007
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Post by William »

Here is a link to a learning example document which I produced.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/shadows.pdf

The upper image of the page uses the Kern Deco font and the Kern Deco Shadow Layer font.

The lower image of the page uses the Kern Deco font and the Kern Deco Shadow Layer 2 font.

William Overington

29 October 2007
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Post by William »

I have been experimenting and have produced a font named Kern Deco Jazz.

The font was produced by starting with a copy of KERNDECA.TTF Kern Deco Outline version 0.052.

The glyphs for the new font were produced by altering only the inner contours of the glyphs: the outer contours are unaltered.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/KERNDECJ.TTF

William Overington

7 March 2008
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Post by William »

I have been trying out the Kern Deco Jazz font with the Kern Deco font and the Kern Deco Outline font so as to produce a three colour effect.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/a ... tylish.pdf

William Overington

7 March 2008
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