DTL, iconic digital-type pioneer and *proudly independent* high-quality foundry since 1990, entered the computer-font market in the industry’s very first decade.
’s-Hertogenbosch
Joined June 2012
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In 2020 we’ll celebrate 30 years of font production for professionals by professionals: including work by Matthew Carter, Hanna Hakala, Nikola Djurek, Michael Harvey, Johann Michael Fleischmann, Jan van Krimpen, Lukas Schneider, Gerard Unger and Frank E. Blokland –to name a few…
The OTFC 2026–27 type-design course starts on October 13.
Our wonderful students from eight countries have diverse educational backgrounds: from no formal qualification to Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, and one PhD.
Registration open until September 29 lettermodel.org/OTF-course.h…
Type design provides the building blocks; typography organizes and applies them. Two complementary online courses from the Dutch Type Library explore both disciplines through history, theory, technology, and practice: lettermodel.org/courses.html
Dutch Type Library retweeted
📅 Intro Zoom sessions for the 2026–27 OTFC:
May 19 & June 16, 2026 🕒 15:00–17:00 (Amsterdam time)
Advanced foundation for further study + professional development in type design.
✉️ Register: otf [at] lettermodel [dot] org
lettermodel.org/OTF-course.h…
After many years of development and iteration, version 10.3 of DTL OTMaster is finally available. It includes new tools, updates, extensions, and a few minor bug fixes. For native Apple Silicon and Intel Macs (both code signed), Windows 64-bit, and Linux: dutchtypelibrary.nl/Shops/FM…
OTMaster 10.3 (coming soon) adds several advanced features, including conversion between CFF-based OpenType fonts and TTF variants. This produces unhinted fonts –CFF-based fonts can be autohinted in OTM. As WOFF/WOFF2 conversion has been supported for years, this can be combined.
With this row of justified matrices from Hendrik van den Keere’s Reale Romaine –the Renaissance roman-type model that formed the basis for DTL VandenKeere some 35 years ago– we wish you a happy new year!
As independent developers, we’ve always trusted the security and integrity of our software, which is why we didn’t code-sign it. But with Gatekeeper in the latest macOS versions making it harder to bypass, we’ve now started code-signing our tools to ensure smoother installations.
Dutch Type Library retweeted
The OTF Course (lettermodel.org/OTF-course.h…) has now been running for just over two months. The students have already produced an impressive body of work exploring pattern formation and frameworks in historical and contemporary type. A few selected examples: typedrawers.com/discussion/6…
Time flies when you’re having fun! Over the last 50 years, glyph editors have become more sophisticated: from the IKARUS system to the latest Bézier editors. Interestingly, the layouts of vintage IK and BE editors –still running at DTL under X11– are now considered ‘hip’ by some!
The latest version of fontenigma.com is a bit faster and looks cleaner. It also includes stronger Unicode obfuscation: code points of roughly 400 characters have been scrambled across ranges used by the displayed fonts. This makes full reconstruction considerably harder.
In FontEnigma, the served woff2 files are now XOR-encrypted, and decrypted on the fly in the browser. The fonts are then loaded using FontFace and referenced via temporary ‘blob:’ URLs, which expire immediately (and thus change when the page is refreshed). fontenigma.com/
For protection, FontEnigma (in development) uses obfuscated fonts. Text appears scrambled outside the site, making the fonts useless when downloaded. Now, pasted text is obfuscated on the fly and copied/cut text is decoded to match what was initially typed.fontenigma.com
The Origin of Type Frameworks Course (OTFC) 2025–2026 is now fully booked. Registration is already open for the 2026–2027 edition: lettermodel.org/OTF-course.h…
A detailed description of the OTF Course technical sessions by Dr. Jürgen Willrodt is now available as PDF: lettermodel.org/downloads/OT… Jürgen has shaped four decades of font tech and now shares his firsthand insights. The photo of him programming was taken in 1991 at Fujitsu, Japan.
We have ten confirmed registrations and several pending for the OTF Course. The group is diverse, including two participants with a master’s in type. An informal extra info session is scheduled this afternoon at 3 PM Amsterdam time. For a link, contact otf[at]lettermodel[dot]org.
It was a fun and productive information session this afternoon. The diagram, by the way, comes from this recent discussion on the TypeDrawers forum: typedrawers.com/discussion/5…
Manual digitization in IKARUS format is excellent for capturing subtle details. However, converting to cubic Bézier often introduces some redundant contour points, especially in flat curve segments. Over the past few years, we have cleaned up thousands of glyphs to optimize them.
A week ago we had a nice online OTF-Course lettermodel.org/OTF-course.h… info session. We now have a group of nine students for the 2025–26 edition, and at least one more commitment –a good start. For those who have never seen Jürgen speak about font technology: av.tib.eu/media/30385
Join us for an online info session about the Origin of Type Frameworks (OTF) course on
📅 Friday, Aug 15, 2025
🕒 15:00 CEST (Amsterdam time)
📍 Zoom | Hosted by Jürgen & Frank
🔗 Register via email: otf [at] lettermodel [dot] org
🔍 Details: lettermodel.org/OTF-course.h…
