Opentype is a term that we often use and we want to make sure you understand what we are talking about!

 

Opentype is basically a digital typeface format, developped by Microsoft and Adobe in the late 1990 to replace the existing formats of TrueType or Postscript. Opentype fonts are indicated with an extension of .otf at the end of the font name.

 

This new technology allowed some great advances in typography and for us, brought about this fantastic period of type creation that we are all experiencing. Firstly, the format allowed a much larger character set, from 243 glyphs to over 65'000. This allowed the inclusion of not only foreign scripts, but equally certain type features like ligatures that used to have to be delivered in seperate font file; now a single file could contain them all!

This new technology allowed type designers to rediscover some lost treasure of the past, from ligature forms, the swash letters, suddenly, the only limit was our own creation! Another great feature is the fact that the same font format is compatible between Windows and Macintosh operating systems.

 

Typogama really got involved with Opentype around 2006 and this was a revolution for us; we just love those added features! So watch out for most our fonts that will include a few features and have a little read on our Understanding Opentype features to see what additions these functions bring.