Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: Economist article on Ecotype typeface design
Message-ID: <176058@bfmny0.BFM.COM>
Date: 11 Jun 91 09:26:36 GMT
References: <4lsh!qd@rpi.edu> <1991Jun7.152116.15777@slhisc.uucp>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Lines: 27

In article <1991Jun7.152116.15777@slhisc.uucp> jlister@slhisc.uucp (John Lister) writes:
>In article <4lsh!qd@rpi.edu> wrf@mab.ecse.rpi.edu (Wm Randolph Franklin) writes:
>>The May 24-31 issue of The Economist has a 2 page article on the design
>>of their new typeface -- Ecotype.  It was done with PostScript.  Two
>>major requirements were these: 
>
>A most frustrating article--it only told half the story!  What I wanted to 
>know was why do they *fax* the printed output?  If they now use PostScript,
>why not send that, then print it locally (either on an imagesetter if it's
>the final output, or on a laser if they're going to edit it further (or even
>the source from whatever page makeup they use...)).

The article didn't say they "fax" the pages, in the American sense of
the word.  It said the pages are transmitted "in facsimile," which is
Brit-speak for some sort of actual image rather than the abstract text.
That probably does mean they transmit mean dots, not a high level PDL.
It is, after all, in their interest to be able to control, dot-for-dot,
what appears on the page worldwide.  If they choose to transfer raster
for this purpose, so what!  It certainly lets them do things like
experiment with different versions of Ecotype without having to ship
software upgrades all over the place.

One also assumes that the raster they send has a resolution matching
that of the imagesetter it's destined for.  So, the typographic
considerations of bitmapped font readability at small point sizes which
gave rise to the Ecotype design (Stone Informal, too) would come into
play either way.