I usually play the Countdown variant, where a letter cannot be re-used. But it starts with 9 letters and one can have multiple instances of the same letter in the starting set.
It would be fun if you could implement this, as well. An initial switch might determine what rules are in effect.
I think every professional type designer I know uses this software.
I have trouble coming up with any other example of total domination of a market segment. Maybe Photoshop in its glory days, or Quark Xpress before that, but even in those cases, there were alternatives in (minor) use.
It’s possible you have a small sample.. I have not noticed “total domination” myself. The type foundries I know and sometimes work with are split. Many use RoboFont. FontLab is less common, but there are some shops that have invested in it deeply enough they’re still using older versions, even. And others develop their own tools, like Fontra, to better address challenges in CJK type design
RoboFont is deeply tied to the Type & Media program at KABK in the Hague. And it has a long history, building off what came before - it is both font software and pedagogy. My memory on this isn’t perfect but I believe Glyphs and RoboFont were both proposals around the time the UFO spec was being formalized
Adobe’s Illustrator and Photoshop are unquestionably dominant in their own markets.
Yes, there are alternatives. Yes, there are people using the alternatives. No, the alternatives do not hold any meaningful percentage of the design software market.
Adobe sucks but no alternative comes even close to Photoshop and Illustrator.
Yes, my point (ie: that Adobe sucks and has to acquire its rivals to survive) is immaterial to your primary point (ie: there are no alternatives to some Adobe products).
I suspect you know some Adobe history already - like that a couple decades back Macromedia's product suite was set to overtake Adobe's. Others here may not. It's good for them (regardless of your primary point) to know that Adobe buys its competition.
The point I made in my comment was only material to (and in agreement with) the point you made in passing: Adobe sucks!
It’s certainly a Herculean task, not because there aren’t *type designers who use FontForge, but because there are simply too many of them for me to even consider speaking for them all. However, I’m game.
Microsoft Excel after 1-2-3 (the previous dominator) and before Google Sheets? Word after WordPerfect (close to dominant) and before Google Docs? PowerPoint before Keynote?
To be precise, it takes 1 employee to say "used in X". It takes corporate decision to say "used by X". And it takes a written agreement to be able to use the trademarked logo of X on your page. (I know, because I have collected more than 60 such agreements to show logos on a page).
It's a good question. We had a previous language, JDoc, based in JSON. It covered only part of the functionality of the XML-based language and was really only for machine-machine.
We researched a bunch of others: languages like LaTeX and Typst are obvious alternatives. We also considered a super-augmented version of Markdown. Even looked at YAML.
Com'on, it's not that bad. The idea of these organizations is that, since they're using and testing this software, "we'll see any issues first, we'll let you know, and we'll deal with it." The quoted part bears some resemblance to the tasks of Akrites.
Remains to be seen whether history will repeat itself: when the tax breaks/ free AI use stops, will anyone keep doing this?
Disclaimer: I have had nothing to do with this initiative, and was not consulted on the name.
I can also recommend a book from my library: Typoésie by Jérôme Peignot (Imprimerie nationale editions, Paris, 1993), ISBN 2-11-081272-9 (or newer edition 9782742757985).
From the book description: The works of the great typographers of the 20th century are featured: Maximilien Vox, Cassandre’s “Bifur,” Piet Zwart, the Americans Martin Solomon and Herb Lubalin, Raymond Gid, and Guy Levis Mano. The book also showcases the visual poetry of the Germans Gomringer, Mon, and Rühm; the Brazilians de Campos and Pignatari; Emmet Williams; Christian Dotremont; and Jacques Roubaud; and the “typoems” by painters such as Matisse, Magritte, Duchamp, Lissitzky, Raymond Hains, Jiri Kollar, Jasper Johns, and Valerio Adami. Even mathematics and musical notation are included.
I usually play the Countdown variant, where a letter cannot be re-used. But it starts with 9 letters and one can have multiple instances of the same letter in the starting set.
It would be fun if you could implement this, as well. An initial switch might determine what rules are in effect.