BOSTON–Font management can be a pain for any creative professional, but large creative workgroups have special needs.
For example, a corporate design shop often standardizes on a certain font set. However, what happens when Bob has Adobe Helvetica, Chandra has ITC Helvetica, and they don’t discover kerning tables or glyph differences until the 32-page annual report they’ve been working on reflows in Quark with hideous results?
There may also be legal issues when a group member brings in an unauthorized font. Sure, that hip new typeface looks cool, but if it’s not paid for, the corporation who used it may be liable for its unlawful use.
At Seybold Boston 2000, DiamondSoft ( www.diamondsoft.com, 415-381-3503) gave a sneak peek at a product shipping this summer that addresses these needs. The Font Reserve Server treats fonts much like an asset manager treats images, storing the files in a central location and downloading them to individual hard drives in real time as requested. An administrator manages fonts from a central location, controlling who can activate, add, delete, and export font on an individual and group level.
Setting up access appears to be easy, as does signing into the program as a user. And designers bristling at the thought of being denied certain fonts will be relieved to know that even without permission, you can upload fonts onto the central server and share them with others–the files are simply marked as outside the approved sets.
Version 1 of the Font Reserve Server will run on a Windows NT workstation and serve Macintosh clients. DiamondSoft did not reveal any pricing information.