Job:03171 Title:Typography Referenced (Rockport)
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Typography, Referenced
Type
Management
By Ina Saltz, Jason Tselentis, and Tyler Alterman
F
ont management is a serious busi-
ness for designers, especially with the
number of digitally available type-
faces soaring practically by the minute.
Font management software is used for installing,
uninstalling, activating, searching, comparing,
and organizing fonts. Why do we need to manage
fonts? Every active font in a system requires com-
puting resources. Font management allows for
activation of a font only when it’s actually being
used, which frees up computing resources so your
system can function more effi ciently.
While all computer platforms provide some
basic form of font management, it is usually
insuffi cient for professional designers, most who
regularly use hundreds or thousands of fonts.
Each font is composed of data, which take up
storage space. Though fonts are typically not
data-heavy fi les, the activation of many fonts
simultaneously consumes processing and com-
puting power and can signifi cantly slow down
effi ciency and productivity.
For a single computer user, font management
software greatly eases fi nding fonts and increases
availability of computing power. In design, print,
and publishing environments with multiple users
linked into a network, administrators face addi-
tional font-management challenges that only
a server-based font management can address.
Administrators can control access rights across
an entire work group from a centralized source,
thus ensuring that members of the user group
have the exact versions of fonts that they need
and the appropriate permission to use the fonts
without having to check and update each individ-
ual workstation.
In addition to technical reasons to use font-
management software, it also allows the designer
to organize and access fonts in an orderly fashion,
like having tidy and logically arranged closets
and storage areas. Besides peace of mind, good
font organization helps designers focus their
energies on the design process of the job at hand
rather than getting bogged down sorting through
a messy pile of fonts.
Although some designers (even some very
well-known designers) profess to need only
a few typefaces, most designers want and
need a large selection (most of us can’t get
enough!), but we want to minimize the visual
distraction of endless scrolling and increase
our ability to locate what we need, when
we need it. That’s where good font manage-
ment comes in. With a little investment of
time up front, designers can save time when
it matters—in the crunch of a deadline.
This chapter off ers an overview of font-
management tools to help any designer decide
which features are most important and will
work best for his or her font-management needs.
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Job:03171 Title:Typography Referenced (Rockport)
Page: 336
336-343 03171.indd 336 9/22/11 10:31 AM