Can stealing sheep be far behind?

[Eric Ladner]

So, it's finally happened: today I letterspaced blackletter - or at least extensively kerned it.

Engraved will envelopes (for law offices), produced for decades from ancient dies that the new production people can't or won't use (and the dies were really showing their age, wear-and-tear, anyway).

And the clients are of the "it's always looked this way, and we want it to look the way it's always looked" school.

Linotext is as close as I've been able to come to the typeface, although some of the majuscules aren't quite right, and some of the widths are a little off. I'm putting it down to "different technologies."

Anyway, I scanned a sample and put it in a locked layer in InDesign. Then I set my new type in bright red on a layer above the scan, to make it easy to see which was type and which was scan, and nudged letters back and forth with the kerning controls (Option - left arrow or Option right arrow) until they lined up.

(Incidentally, if you ever need to do this, it's much easier to make your adjustments to left-aligned type, and then center-align it if necessary. If you do the kerning on centered type, it moves in both directions - very confusing!)

In a lot of ways it seems like wasted effort, but there is a certain satisfaction in figuring out the technique required. And keeping the customers happy does help pay the bills!

Going to go have a big glass of wine now . . .