Typography | MadeByPi® Blog

Feb 28, 2011

FontSwffer 1.1

Posted by Mikea | Filed under Apps, Development, MadeByPi® Labs, Typography

You may remember, in August last year, I released FontSwffer - a tool to simplify the creation of font SWFs for Flash.

Several minor updates and bug-fixes have been released over the last few months, and now, I think, it's time for a 'dot' release. So, here comes FontSwffer 1.1

Along with some little improvements, bug-fixes, and tweaks, the main new features are:

Project files:
You can now save and load all your font setup in FontSwffer project files (.fsproj - an uncompressed XML file)
File drag-drop support:
Drag-drop support has been added to the application for font files (.ttf, .otf, .ttc), font SWFs (.swf), and FontSwffer project files (.fsproj)
Application invoke options:
FontSwffer can now be invoked directly via project files, or by dropping font SWFs and fonts files onto the application icon.

If you've installed an earlier version, the next time you run FontSwffer the update should be downloaded to your desktop and it will ask you if you want to install it right away.

Or, if you fancy it, you can grab the new builds directly:

Windows - FontSwffer_1.1010_win32.zip
OSX - FontSwffer_1.1010_osx.zip

Aug 25, 2010

FontSwffer

Posted by Mikea | Filed under Apps, Development, MadeByPi® Labs, Typography

Creating font-asset SWFs for Flash used to be a bit of a pain. But now, there's FontSwffer.

FontSwffer is an Air 2 native application for Windows and OSX that lets you configure, build, and preview your font SWFs all in one place. All you need to do is set-up the fonts you want to embed and press a button, that's pretty much it. If you just want the font embed ActionScript to use in your own work-flow, FontSwffer can create that for you too.

FontSwffer uses the Flex 4 SDK to compile your SWFs, just point it to the location of the SDK on your hard-drive and you're good to go.
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Jun 2, 2010

Rare update

Posted by admin | Filed under Cool stuff, Design, Typography

Rare - the games studio responsible for Banjo Kazooie and Perfect Dark - have had a drastic new rebrand. The new flat colour logos are a striking and modern updates to the old 'golden R' design. Nice stuff. Full gallery inside...
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Feb 25, 2010

Fact me!

Posted by admin | Filed under Design, Typography

A massive infographic with loads of google facts! Created by Pingdom

Full size after the jump...
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Feb 17, 2010

A new visual language for the BBC’s digital services

Posted by Chrish | Filed under Design, Typography

BBC Workspace

The BBC are in the process of rolling out a new visual language for their digital services. Representatives from across the BBC business have formed The Global Design Working Group along with Neville Brody's Research Studios who won a 6 way tender for the project. We got a close look at the new homepage elements, use of typography and the media player this Monday at a BBCs Design Suppliers event as well as a detailed presentation on the process they've been through. They promised the online version this week and here it is with loads of pictures, Global Visual Language v2.0

Feb 4, 2010

Plane branding!

Posted by admin | Filed under Cool stuff, Design, Typography

Check out this Kulula Airlines livery for their planes!

Full story on psfk

Nov 9, 2009

AS3 WOFF Parser

Posted by Mikea | Filed under MadeByPi® Labs, Typography

I recently stumbled upon the Web Open Font Format (WOFF) when trying out the Firefox 3.6 beta, and thanks to the well documented WOFF file format, made this AS3 WOFF parser for Flash.

Initially the parser was just an experimental project that would let me get my teeth into a bit of ByteArray manipulation. After all, parsing a WOFF file lets us read the original font tables and any metadata or private data contained - but the font tables aren't much use in Flash without further parsing.

Then I remembered reading about Thibault Imbert's research into converting TTF fonts to AFM (Adobe Font Metrics) at runtime using a c library compiled to AVM bytecode with Alchemy - and realised this parser class could probably be used in conjunction with something like that. So it may end up having uses after all.

I'm making the WOFFParser class available here with an open source licence, along with a FlashDevelop project and a WOFF file to test it with. I created the WOFF for my test with a command-line tool (included) and embedded a test metadata xml file in it. The WOFF file specification also allows vendors to include a chunk of unspecified private data - the class will also allow access to those bytes if present. I included a PNG image as the private data in the test WOFF file, which you will see if you build the project.

For further WOFF resources; I used the command line tool sfnt2woff to create the WOFF file for this project and font squirrel support the WOFF format with lots of resources in their @font-face sections.

AS3 WOFF parser source

Nov 4, 2009

Reducing the drudgery of embedding fonts in AS3

Posted by Mikea | Filed under MadeByPi® Labs, Technology, Typography, Usability

Using and managing embedded fonts in Flash is a lot easier than it was a few years ago, but I still find myself repeating tedious steps of set-up each time I need to create a new font-asset swf.

So, I created an Air application to do it for me