FontShop International

FSI GmbH in Berlin is the company that publishes the FontFont library. The first FontFont release (1990) contained LettError fonts and we've worked together closely since then. A short overview of some of the design and software projects.

FontFontFinder Generator

The FontFont Catalog site is generated by a LettError program. Databases with information about designers, packages and fonts are exported and processed. The program then generates updates (for instance: "all the pages relevant to the new fonts") which are uploaded via ftp. The application itself has almost no interface, it does not need to design the pages, just distill information and flow it into thousands of pages.

FontSetter

The website also needs images of fonts: oneliners, charactersets and text settings. Another program, the FontSetter, talks to a Filemaker Pro database, gets all the relevant font info, looks for the fonts in the system and generates an image. The user can then edit the settings.
A standard setting is almost never good enough for a font: there are special characters that need to be highlighted, expert sets needs tweaking etc. The edited data is put back in the database. Gifs are generated, records updated.

Q&A

Until the start of the FSI Tech Department, LettError tested, mastered and produced the FontFont releases. Using RoboFog testing and mastering was a highly automated procedure. RoboFog Scripts such as the ProblemBrowser and KernCluster started out as FontFont production tools. RoboFog was linked to Filemaker databases to keep track of font ID-numbers, postscript names, encodings, designers, copyright notes, etc. All those simple things that aren't a problem until you have to keep track of hundreds of them.

The FontFonts are now mastered by the FSI Tech Department.