OpenType: the fusion of design and technology

How-to
By published

OpenType technology has revolutionised the way designers work with type. Nick Cooke explains how to get maximum benefit from OpenType and enrich your creative output.

OpenType has become the new industry standard font format, offering countless new creative options to everyone working with type. Type designers have been freed from the shackles of PostScript's restrictive character set, enabling them to include alternates, small caps, swashes, ligatures and additional languages within one single feature-rich (Pro) font.

Furthermore, fonts can be 'programmed' to behave contextually, automatically inserting a stylistic alternate, ligature or end glyph into OT-savvy applications when the relevant feature is activated.

Thank you for reading 5 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

TOPICS
Creative Bloq Staff
Creative Bloq Staff
All things Creative Bloq

The Creative Bloq team is made up of a group of design fans, and has changed and evolved since Creative Bloq began back in 2012. The current website team consists of eight full-time members of staff: Editor Georgia Coggan, Deputy Editor Rosie Hilder, Ecommerce Editor Beren Neale, Senior News Editor Daniel Piper, Editor, Digital Art and 3D Ian Dean, Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur Einarsson, Ecommerce Writer Beth Nicholls and Staff Writer Natalie Fear, as well as a roster of freelancers from around the world. The ImagineFX magazine team also pitch in, ensuring that content from leading digital art publication ImagineFX is represented on Creative Bloq.