Prototypo

Our Trustees all have a thing for kerning. We notice when two letters have a weird amount of space between them, and we want to fix that. Well, it turns out we’re not the only ones who dream about a reasonably simple way to create our own alphabets that look exactly like we want them to, kerning included.

Prototypo is an open-source online application unlike any other. The advantage is that you can get started with little knowledge of a demanding subject, and you can create alphabets by exploring new shapes and proportions in just a few clicks. When you get the hang of it, you can modify more than twenty parameters that will change the appearance of all characters at the same time (other software requires all characters to be drawn one by one).

We kicked in to Prototypo’s London-based Kickstarter campaign to get this open-source software funded. There are more details and an introduction video on the campaign page, Twitter, and Facebook. Yes, we are space cadets.