Dutch Type Library

In 2020 we’ll celebrate 30 years of font production for professionals by professionals: including work by Matthew Carter, Hanna Hakala, Nikola Djurek, Michael Harvey, Johann Michael Fleischmann, Jan van Krimpen, Lukas Schneider, Gerard Unger and Frank E. Blokland –to name a few…

After many years of development and iteration, version 10.3 of DTL OTMaster is finally available. It includes new tools, updates, extensions, and a few minor bug fixes. For native Apple Silicon and Intel Macs (both code signed), Windows 64-bit, and Linux: dutchtypelibrary.nl/Shops/FM_Shop/

OTMaster 10.3 (coming soon) adds several advanced features, including conversion between CFF-based OpenType fonts and TTF variants. This produces unhinted fonts –CFF-based fonts can be autohinted in OTM. As WOFF/WOFF2 conversion has been supported for years, this can be combined.

With this row of justified matrices from Hendrik van den Keere’s Reale Romaine –the Renaissance roman-type model that formed the basis for DTL VandenKeere some 35 years ago– we wish you a happy new year!

As independent developers, we’ve always trusted the security and integrity of our software, which is why we didn’t code-sign it. But with Gatekeeper in the latest macOS versions making it harder to bypass, we’ve now started code-signing our tools to ensure smoother installations.

The OTF Course (lettermodel.org/OTF-course.html) has now been running for just over two months. The students have already produced an impressive body of work exploring pattern formation and frameworks in historical and contemporary type. A few selected examples: #latest" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">typedrawers.com/discussion/635…

Time flies when you’re having fun! Over the last 50 years, glyph editors have become more sophisticated: from the IKARUS system to the latest Bézier editors. Interestingly, the layouts of vintage IK and BE editors –still running at DTL under X11– are now considered ‘hip’ by some!

The latest version of fontenigma.com is a bit faster and looks cleaner. It also includes stronger Unicode obfuscation: code points of roughly 400 characters have been scrambled across ranges used by the displayed fonts. This makes full reconstruction considerably harder.

In FontEnigma, the served woff2 files are now XOR-encrypted, and decrypted on the fly in the browser. The fonts are then loaded using FontFace and referenced via temporary ‘blob:’ URLs, which expire immediately (and thus change when the page is refreshed). fontenigma.com

@jimjohnstn Cracking the code is certainly possible. However, the obfuscation poses an obstacle for direct downloaders. And even a reengineered font isn’t as good as an original DTL one, as explained here: typedrawers.com/discussion/535…

@ExquisiteFonts This will prevent casual rippers (the majority). But couldnt a determined ripper paste an ordered unicode character list into the site e.g. 0000–007F to work out the mapping?

For protection, FontEnigma (in development) uses obfuscated fonts. Text appears scrambled outside the site, making the fonts useless when downloaded. Now, pasted text is obfuscated on the fly and copied/cut text is decoded to match what was initially typed.fontenigma.com

@RobinScholz It is not unusual to make fonts available online for testing. In the case of exquisitefonts.com, we generate images. That has its limitations, so we are working on a more advanced successor. BTW, we had trial versions ±33 years ago, but were not too enthusiastic about them.

@ExquisiteFonts Why not just provider trial fonts for testing? Seems like you are solving a problem that shouldn’t be one in the first place.

@RobinScholz Since the tool is intended for developers (to test fonts) and doesn not include any built-in content, the usual accessibility requirements around making information perceivable and understandable may not fully apply in this context.

@ExquisiteFonts How does this deal with a11y requirements? Looks like this hasn’t been considered at all, so its basically useless?!

The Origin of Type Frameworks Course (OTFC) 2025–2026 is now fully booked. Registration is already open for the 2026–2027 edition: #section_9" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">lettermodel.org/OTF-course.htm…

A detailed description of the OTF Course technical sessions by Dr. Jürgen Willrodt is now available as PDF: lettermodel.org/downloads/OTF_… Jürgen has shaped four decades of font tech and now shares his firsthand insights. The photo of him programming was taken in 1991 at Fujitsu, Japan.

It was a fun and productive information session this afternoon. The diagram, by the way, comes from this recent discussion on the TypeDrawers forum: typedrawers.com/discussion/543…

We have ten confirmed registrations and several pending for the OTF Course. The group is diverse, including two participants with a master’s in type. An informal extra info session is scheduled this afternoon at 3 PM Amsterdam time. For a link, contact otf[at]lettermodel[dot]org.

@Kanjo One handy feature in DTL FoundryMaster is that when removing points, it preserves the original contours much better than, say, the vintage DTL BezierMaster. There is also an experimental tool for simplifying contours: it is not always perfect, but often does the job quite well.

Just think of all the conversion cleanup for JP Kanji fonts that have up to 20,317 glyphs with vastly more complex designs😳

Manual digitization in IKARUS format is excellent for capturing subtle details. However, converting to cubic Bézier often introduces some redundant contour points, especially in flat curve segments. Over the past few years, we have cleaned up thousands of glyphs to optimize them.

A week ago we had a nice online OTF-Course lettermodel.org/OTF-course.html info session. We now have a group of nine students for the 2025–26 edition, and at least one more commitment –a good start. For those who have never seen Jürgen speak about font technology: av.tib.eu/media/30385

Join us for an online info session about the Origin of Type Frameworks (OTF) course on 📅 Friday, Aug 15, 2025 🕒 15:00 CEST (Amsterdam time) 📍 Zoom | Hosted by Jürgen & Frank 🔗 Register via email: otf [at] lettermodel [dot] org 🔍 Details: lettermodel.org/OTF-course.html