Fun with the automatic calculation and generation of mark-features files for the Latin script. An adaptable and reproducible process whose resulting files are invoked in the batch production of fonts. DTL OTMaster (with HarfBuzz under the hood) is used here to check the outcomes.

Sunday a wall poem was unveiled in the historic city center of Utrecht in memory of the comedian/singer/artist Jeroen van Merwijk denuk.nl/utrecht-eert-j…. The typeface is DTL Dorian by Elmo van Slingerland and was hand-painted by Miranda Maakt het Mooi. The design is by Blokland.

Unicode was a huge leap forward for digital fonts. This system’s virtues played a central role at the DTL conference at Hotel Steigenberger in Hamburg on November 19, 2002. The introductory presentation linked Unicode to Plantin’s stunning Polyglot Bible: dutchtypelibrary.nl/Downloads/PDF/…

It is good to see that the printed edition of On the Origin of Patterning in Movable Latin Type is selling so well in the shop of Museum Plantin-Moretus. Another 30 copies of the black and white trade edition tinyurl.com/yck4ddt3 will soon be shipped by Lulu Press to Antwerp.

To create OpenType TTF we use DTL’s quadratic-spline databases. The tightness of the cubic-Bézier conversion can be controlled and contours can be edited. For example, for web fonts we use a slightly looser conversion, combined with fewer and overall somewhat wider kerning pairs.

We are currently testing newly generated native Apple Silicon versions of the DTL type design and font production tools, such as FoundryMaster, OTMaster, LetterModeller, and GPOSMaster, which are shown in the attached screenshots respectively.

Recently the February 2024 newsletter from the Plantin Institute of Typography in Antwerp was sent out to announce two courses for those interested in the practical and theoretical aspects of type design, font production, and the history of type: mailchi.mp/deacf0744e67/n…

Anyone who currently enters Museum Plantin-Moretus cannot miss the large sign in the hall, typeset in DTL VandenKeere. The placard points to the exhibition From Scribble to Cartoon, with drawings from Bruegel to Rubens from MPM’s collection that runs until the 18th of this month.

Melting Metal; Developing Typecraft is a publication by the graduates of the Expert class Type design 2022–23. It is the result of a thorough investigation into the reuse of patterns recorded in frameworks during the Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassicism. addition-projects.com

Not specially made with the new year in mind, but still somewhat appropriate: a house number that the founder of DTL carved into bluestone about 40 years ago. dutchtypelibrary.nl/blokland.html

With this view of the city of ’s-Hertogenbosch from Guicciardini’s description of the Netherlands, printed by Plantin in the 1580s (from DTL’s copper-engravings collection), we wish you all the best for the new year in our wonderful typographical métier. May 2024 be TypoMagical!

For 33 years, DTL has been producing fonts and software that we consider a valuable contribution to the typographic métier. The same independent approach applies to the way we present ourselves on the web. Fortunately, there have always been customers who share our ideas. Thanks!

Sometimes we’re asked what the IKARUS contour descriptions look like compared to cubic Bézier. DTL IkarusMaster, in combination with a tablet & lens cursor, was largely used for manually digitizing DTL Fell. The screenshots were taken in DTL FoundryMaster. dutchtypelibrary.nl/PDF/Type_speci…

DTL OTMaster was launched in 2009 after a long development period: the image is from the original press release. Fourteen years later, OTM Edition 10 is in production, scheduled for spring 2024. It will include native support for Apple Silicon and improved variable-fonts support.

Rather primitive explorations of vectorization on a 64 kB Acorn Electron home computer in 1983, eventually leading to digital typefaces produced by DTL using proprietary font tools. This is a collection of modifications photographed from a screen. See also lettermodel.org//biography.html

Final call: this year’s in-person edition of the Expert class Type design offers a unique opportunity to scrutinize type-foundry artifacts and study type design under the roof of Museum Plantin-Moretus. Next year the course will be inevitably online again. mailchi.mp/ef621b56effb/n…

Small addition to DTL’s modest JvK collection: a copy of Printing the Times with his signature and ex libris from his son Huib. The book contains an account of the typographical changes introduced in the October 3, 1932 edition, for which Stanley Morison was largely responsible.

On Saturday, September 16, the annual graduation event of the Plantin Institute of Typography took place in the beautiful Museum Plantin-Moretus. Among the graduates were 14 EcTd students. And in exactly one month the new EcTd 2023–2024 course will start. plantininstitute.be