DecoType’s Advanced Composition Engine
With this article I wanted to incite people to learn and investigate more about ACE technology. We need a font technology revolution and with DecoType’s product we could surely change the text world.
What is an Advanced Composition Engine?
It is an engine similar to OTF and TTF engines, only it is more advanced and beyond comparasion with them, because it would be like comparing Adobe’s Photoshop with Microsoft’s Paint. You can draw with both of them, but with a major difference.
If you visit DecoType’s home page you can read articles and watch videos about their projects. At academia.edu you can find Thomas Milo’s profile and read some more articles. In this -> publication you can learn about issues regarding Arabic typefaces because this engine primarily resolves problems of Arabic script in regard to its complexity. Latin script typefaces are presented better as well.
Software solution called Tasmeem relies on ACE technology. It is an InDesign plug-in with awesome capabilities. You will be amazed by its vast options. It’s editing possibilities and composition are something you can’t find with any other product.
What are the problems with regular Arabic OTF’s?
When you read some of the DecoType’s articles or watch at least one of their videos, you will understand the issues with OTF that still remain unresolved. It is 2019, and we still use hybrid fonts (EXAMPLE) that are made according to Latin script rules and that are limited with OTF and TTF options. This font given in the example link is from the better ones, and it looks decent, has nice composition and line weights, but it still can not compare to traditional Arabic script style. So what could we say about the fonts mostly used today, which are 90% worse than the font in the example link. Arabic typeface designers have some pleasant products, but without ACE they will never reach the finest levels of sophistication and functionality.
I advise you to research about this engine and ask software companies about it, so that we can popularize this product. Please, do research some links provided here, and learn more about typeface world in general. You will be pleased and amazed by the things you will learn.
Looking for an outstanding product? Use ACE.
Links:
https://decotype.com/oman/2017-08_Stanford_Face-Interface.mp4
