Digital Formats for Typefaces.

Peter Karow invented the concept of outline fonts, digitized using the Ikarus system based on bezier curves. Outline fonts allow for a great deal of modification from one master, so they can be adjusted on the fly for low-resolution computer monitors, sloped, thickened, or otherwise manipulated. Also, outline fonts do not require large amounts of computer memory. Today nearly all type is created using the principles presented here, more than thirty years ago.

Almost perversely, on the cover of the book is shown a free, rough-textured calligraphic piece on deckle-edged paper by the calligrapher and type designer Jovica Veljovič. The letterforms created by the calligrapher’s pen, as reproduced here, are about as far away as you can get from computer-aided digital character generation.