As a graphic artist and a manager of a prepress department I made good use of MultipleMaster fonts. For my long documents and catalogs it was a trusted and life saving tool. I found their use particularly usfull for Database to press projects. The image setters I have worked with usually had a hickup with MM but the solutions were usually simple. Since I have made the switch to OSX I have had increased problems with MM and it looks like I will phase them out.
I am sorry to see their fading presence.
Michael
I disagree that phototypesetting led to the overuse of closely spaced text. For most of us. I grew in the beginnings of phototypesetting. The German magazine, Twen, was the pinnacle of layout at that time--so good Tina Brown imitated it with "Talk". Its masthead had closely spaced fat lowercase characters spelling out "twen". Most magazines were poor then and still are. In the 1960s,I used a mixture of IBM Compositor, hot type, and photosetting on a 2 inch wide paper or film as well as rub down lettering. What really got most of us (those without twen's budget) closely spacing type was Letraset and the other rub down lettering. They had these fonts that encouraged close spacing, like Compacta. Using phototypesetting bureaus was a difficult way to get outlandish spacing. You had to do it yourself which meant rub down. Later, Letraset introduced little spacing bars underneath but by then it was too late. There was an American brand of cut out lettering called Format, I think. It had the little spacing guides first. You would cut out a line of text and position on the edge of a piece of paper. Then place it in position, rub down the lettering and cut off the guide bars underneath. It could not compete with Letraset.
I have spent 14+ years in Digital Prepress and am also a freelance designer . I have worked with both AGFA and LInotype-Hell (now Heidelberg) imagesetters as well as the Creo-Scitex Trendsetter/Platesetter. Multiple Master fonts are very problematic in Postscripted files as well as PDF files, both of which are essential to workflows for the above equipment.
We are very knowledgeable in font technology (I use Fontographer for creation of custom symbol fonts). To get a Multiple Master font to work we often had to switch Postscript drivers -- say from Laserwriter 8.3 to 8.7 or to the AdobePS driver. Oddly what worked one time didn't the next time, but between the 3 drivers we could usually get one to work. It is very time consuming on a long publication.
I imagine these frustrating problems were part of Adobe's decision to drop support as they did with PressReady (another product that was very good when it worked and very bad when it didn't)
Submitted by Jak Keyser on Mon, 05/05/2003 - 19:47.
As one of the most ardent and prolific supporters and developers of MM fonts outside of Adobe (3 published fonts, two 1-axis and one 2-axis fonts), I had a sad but elated feeling the day that Harold Grey from Adobe called to let me know that support and development of MM fonts was ceasing. (Adobe had licensed VerveMM because it was a MM font).
Sad, because MM fonts were way too much work! Elated, because now I could focus on more reliable font technology.
For anyone using Fontographer (everyone almost) it was extremely difficult to create a working MM font reliably and consistently. The specifications are complex for the ordering of paths, points and other arcane details of type development.
But i'm no longer sad. While OT technology doesn't allow the infinite weight/width variety of a MM font, the priniciples necessary to create a successful OpenType font are based on creating master outlines that would have created a working MM font.
New tools such as FontLab 4 make generating MM fonts much easier, but the allure of OT, with contextual ligatures and yet-unexplored ways to use even words as glyphs is far more exciting.
Now if we could just get users to switch to InDesign and OT fonts...
I think I can help the author out when he wonders why the MM fonts failed. There were far too many instances of printers and service bureaus who were unaware of how to handle the fonts. Subsequently they got a bad reputation, and then later, Apple dropped support for them and the technology went nowhere.
I was not a huge fan of them, they brought the opportunity for really ugly type when misused. In retrospect, it seems there wasn't enough "trickle down" info put out by Adobe to get folks to really adopt the technology and use it well.
Just like Apple's Open Doc and a few others, it was a neat idea that never really took off.
Submitted by geozinger on Mon, 05/05/2003 - 05:20.
I will miss MultipleMaster
As a graphic artist and a manager of a prepress department I made good use of MultipleMaster fonts. For my long documents and catalogs it was a trusted and life saving tool. I found their use particularly usfull for Database to press projects. The image setters I have worked with usually had a hickup with MM but the solutions were usually simple. Since I have made the switch to OSX I have had increased problems with MM and it looks like I will phase them out.
I am sorry to see their fading presence.
Michael
John Berry on close spacing of type
I disagree that phototypesetting led to the overuse of closely spaced text. For most of us. I grew in the beginnings of phototypesetting. The German magazine, Twen, was the pinnacle of layout at that time--so good Tina Brown imitated it with "Talk". Its masthead had closely spaced fat lowercase characters spelling out "twen". Most magazines were poor then and still are. In the 1960s,I used a mixture of IBM Compositor, hot type, and photosetting on a 2 inch wide paper or film as well as rub down lettering. What really got most of us (those without twen's budget) closely spacing type was Letraset and the other rub down lettering. They had these fonts that encouraged close spacing, like Compacta. Using phototypesetting bureaus was a difficult way to get outlandish spacing. You had to do it yourself which meant rub down. Later, Letraset introduced little spacing bars underneath but by then it was too late. There was an American brand of cut out lettering called Format, I think. It had the little spacing guides first. You would cut out a line of text and position on the edge of a piece of paper. Then place it in position, rub down the lettering and cut off the guide bars underneath. It could not compete with Letraset.
Very interesting
Berry is insightful as always.
Multiple Masters were buggy in use
I have spent 14+ years in Digital Prepress and am also a freelance designer . I have worked with both AGFA and LInotype-Hell (now Heidelberg) imagesetters as well as the Creo-Scitex Trendsetter/Platesetter. Multiple Master fonts are very problematic in Postscripted files as well as PDF files, both of which are essential to workflows for the above equipment.
We are very knowledgeable in font technology (I use Fontographer for creation of custom symbol fonts). To get a Multiple Master font to work we often had to switch Postscript drivers -- say from Laserwriter 8.3 to 8.7 or to the AdobePS driver. Oddly what worked one time didn't the next time, but between the 3 drivers we could usually get one to work. It is very time consuming on a long publication.
I imagine these frustrating problems were part of Adobe's decision to drop support as they did with PressReady (another product that was very good when it worked and very bad when it didn't)
Sad but elated
As one of the most ardent and prolific supporters and developers of MM fonts outside of Adobe (3 published fonts, two 1-axis and one 2-axis fonts), I had a sad but elated feeling the day that Harold Grey from Adobe called to let me know that support and development of MM fonts was ceasing. (Adobe had licensed VerveMM because it was a MM font).
Sad, because MM fonts were way too much work! Elated, because now I could focus on more reliable font technology.
For anyone using Fontographer (everyone almost) it was extremely difficult to create a working MM font reliably and consistently. The specifications are complex for the ordering of paths, points and other arcane details of type development.
But i'm no longer sad. While OT technology doesn't allow the infinite weight/width variety of a MM font, the priniciples necessary to create a successful OpenType font are based on creating master outlines that would have created a working MM font.
New tools such as FontLab 4 make generating MM fonts much easier, but the allure of OT, with contextual ligatures and yet-unexplored ways to use even words as glyphs is far more exciting.
Now if we could just get users to switch to InDesign and OT fonts...
Brian Sooy
Altered Ego Fonts
aefonts.com
Multiple Master Disasters
I think I can help the author out when he wonders why the MM fonts failed. There were far too many instances of printers and service bureaus who were unaware of how to handle the fonts. Subsequently they got a bad reputation, and then later, Apple dropped support for them and the technology went nowhere.
I was not a huge fan of them, they brought the opportunity for really ugly type when misused. In retrospect, it seems there wasn't enough "trickle down" info put out by Adobe to get folks to really adopt the technology and use it well.
Just like Apple's Open Doc and a few others, it was a neat idea that never really took off.