Thomas Rickner
Encyclopedia
Thomas Rickner is an American type designer who, while Lead Typographer at Apple Inc., supervised the production of the first TrueType
fonts released in 1991 as part of Apple’s System 7
operating system for the Macintosh. Rickner provided TrueType production and font hinting of Matthew Carter’s
Georgia
, Verdana
, and Tahoma
typeface families, commissioned by Microsoft
and widely distributed in the Windows operating system and Apple’s Mac OS X
. Rickner’s original type designs include Amanda, Buffalo Gal and Hamilton.
Rickner began his career in type design in 1987 as a bitmap
editor for Omnipage
Corporation, of Rochester, New York. In 1988 he was graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology
School of Printing Management and Sciences with a Bachelor's degree, and started at QMS/Imagen Corporation, a laser printer manufacturer in Santa Clara, California. There, under the direction of noted type designer Charles Bigelow
, Rickner worked in the production and hand font hinting
for laser printers.
In 1989 Rickner began working for Apple, Inc., where he served as Lead Typographer for two years. In addition to supervising production of the first TrueType
fonts released by Apple, Rickner also worked on the early development of TrueType GX
.
In 1992 Rickner began freelance type design work for The Font Bureau, Inc. collaborating on the development of several projects, including the Graphite and Tekton Multiple master fonts
for Adobe Systems
and a revival and expansion of William Addison Dwiggins
’ Eldorado family for Premiere Magazine
.
Rickner joined Monotype Corporation
in July 1994 and in 2004 became a founding partner of Ascender Corporation
in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Rickner is developing fonts for the Ascender Compact Asian Font format (ACAF), and has designed fonts for the Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Thai, Thaana and Cherokee scripts, among others.
Most recently Rickner was involved in the development of Microsoft’s ClearType
font collection and spent nearly two years engineering the Japanese font Meiryo
included with Windows Vista.
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
fonts released in 1991 as part of Apple’s System 7
System 7
System 7 is the name of a Macintosh operating system introduced in 1991.System 7 may also refer to:* System 7 , a British dance/ambient band* System 7 , 1991 album* IBM System/7, a 1970s computer system...
operating system for the Macintosh. Rickner provided TrueType production and font hinting of Matthew Carter’s
Matthew Carter
Matthew Carter is a type designer. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Carter's career in type design has witnessed the transition from physical metal type to digital type...
Georgia
Georgia (typeface)
Georgia is a transitional serif typeface designed in 1993 by Matthew Carter and hinted by Tom Rickner for the Microsoft Corporation, as the serif companion to the first Microsoft sans serif screen font, Verdana. Microsoft released the initial version of the font on November 1, 1996 as part of the...
, Verdana
Verdana
Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography group...
, and Tahoma
Tahoma (typeface)
Tahoma is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for the Microsoft Corporation in 1994 with initial distribution along with Verdana for Windows 95....
typeface families, commissioned by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
and widely distributed in the Windows operating system and Apple’s Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. Rickner’s original type designs include Amanda, Buffalo Gal and Hamilton.
Rickner began his career in type design in 1987 as a bitmap
Bitmap
In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to...
editor for Omnipage
OmniPage
OmniPage is an optical character recognition application available from Nuance Communications.OmniPage was one of the first OCR programs to run on personal computers....
Corporation, of Rochester, New York. In 1988 he was graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester Institute of Technology
The Rochester Institute of Technology is a private university, located within the town of Henrietta in metropolitan Rochester, New York, United States...
School of Printing Management and Sciences with a Bachelor's degree, and started at QMS/Imagen Corporation, a laser printer manufacturer in Santa Clara, California. There, under the direction of noted type designer Charles Bigelow
Charles Bigelow (type designer)
Charles A. Bigelow is a type historian, professor, and designer. Bigelow grew up in the Detroit suburbs and attended the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982. Along with Kris Holmes, he is the co-creator of Lucida and Wingdings font families...
, Rickner worked in the production and hand font hinting
Font hinting
Font hinting is the use of mathematical instructions to adjust the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. At low screen resolutions, hinting is critical for producing a clear, legible text...
for laser printers.
In 1989 Rickner began working for Apple, Inc., where he served as Lead Typographer for two years. In addition to supervising production of the first TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
fonts released by Apple, Rickner also worked on the early development of TrueType GX
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
.
In 1992 Rickner began freelance type design work for The Font Bureau, Inc. collaborating on the development of several projects, including the Graphite and Tekton Multiple master fonts
Multiple master fonts
Multiple master fonts are an extension to Adobe Systems' Type 1 PostScript fonts, now mostly superseded by the advent of OpenType...
for Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
and a revival and expansion of William Addison Dwiggins
William Addison Dwiggins
William Addison Dwiggins was a U.S. type designer, calligrapher, and book designer...
’ Eldorado family for Premiere Magazine
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
.
Rickner joined Monotype Corporation
Monotype Corporation
Monotype Imaging Holdings is a Delaware corporation based in Woburn, Massachusetts and specializing in typesetting and typeface design as well as text and imaging solutions for use with consumer electronics devices. Monotype Imaging Holdings is the owner of Monotype Imaging Inc., Linotype,...
in July 1994 and in 2004 became a founding partner of Ascender Corporation
Ascender Corporation
Ascender Corporation is a digital typeface foundry and software development company located in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, Illinois in the United States...
in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Rickner is developing fonts for the Ascender Compact Asian Font format (ACAF), and has designed fonts for the Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Thai, Thaana and Cherokee scripts, among others.
Most recently Rickner was involved in the development of Microsoft’s ClearType
ClearType
ClearType is a trademark for Microsoft's implementation of subpixel rendering technology. ClearType attempts to improve the appearance of text on certain types of computer display screens by sacrificing color fidelity for additional intensity variation. This trade-off is asserted to work well on...
font collection and spent nearly two years engineering the Japanese font Meiryo
Meiryo
is a Japanese sans-serif gothic typeface. Microsoft bundled Meiryo with Office Mac 2008 as part of the standard install, and it replaces MS Gothic as the default system font for Vista on Japanese systems....
included with Windows Vista.
See also
- Ascender CorporationAscender CorporationAscender Corporation is a digital typeface foundry and software development company located in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, Illinois in the United States...
- Font hintingFont hintingFont hinting is the use of mathematical instructions to adjust the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. At low screen resolutions, hinting is critical for producing a clear, legible text...
- Monotype CorporationMonotype CorporationMonotype Imaging Holdings is a Delaware corporation based in Woburn, Massachusetts and specializing in typesetting and typeface design as well as text and imaging solutions for use with consumer electronics devices. Monotype Imaging Holdings is the owner of Monotype Imaging Inc., Linotype,...
- TrueTypeTrueTypeTrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
- VerdanaVerdanaVerdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography group...
External links
- http://www.fonts.com/aboutfonts/designerprofiles/tomrickner.htm
- http://www.identifont.com/show?5L9
- http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/designer/thomas_a_rickner/
- http://www.linotype.com/3237/tomrickner.html
- http://www.will-harris.com/msfont-hint.htm
- http://www.monotypefonts.com/Foundry/DesignerProfiles.asp?show=rickner