Well, maybe this isn’t so much “design” as it is straight production work. Post Contemporary Records had come to me asking me to create a digital version of a typeface called Freddy, a 1960’s era Morgan Press face, which I suspect is itself a version of an art deco era face.
I decided to try Adobe’s Streamline, their auto-trace program. I hadn’t been very impressed with the auto-trace features on FreeHand, but thought I’d give Streamline a shot.
And it stunk too. The problem with letting a computer algorithm do it is that it places points in really wonky places, and leaves a wobbly, ugly line. I spent so much time cleaning up the lines that I realized I may as well have just traced it myself with the pen tool, getting it perfect the first time. Lesson learned. And auto-trace features still suck all these years later. I can always tell immediately when someone has auto-traced something as the lines are so sloppy. Which can definitely look good in certain instances. But for the stuff that I’ve done and continue to do, I need the lines to be much tighter and precise.
I decided to try Adobe’s Streamline, their auto-trace program. I hadn’t been very impressed with the auto-trace features on FreeHand, but thought I’d give Streamline a shot.
And it stunk too. The problem with letting a computer algorithm do it is that it places points in really wonky places, and leaves a wobbly, ugly line. I spent so much time cleaning up the lines that I realized I may as well have just traced it myself with the pen tool, getting it perfect the first time. Lesson learned. And auto-trace features still suck all these years later. I can always tell immediately when someone has auto-traced something as the lines are so sloppy. Which can definitely look good in certain instances. But for the stuff that I’ve done and continue to do, I need the lines to be much tighter and precise.
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