ESQ Font Fundamentals

Our reputation for high quality screen fonts is unsurpassed. Our library of ESQ® (Enhanced Screen Quality) fonts allows customers to benefit from this expertise. Our ESQ fonts are desirable for several reasons.

Legibility
The computer screen is a challenging environment to test legibility. Good typefaces available for publishing are not always the best choice for the computer environment. It is by no accident that the same typefaces that work well in newspaper production also work well on the computer. The problem is that many users want to be able to print a good the Bembo® typeface design (not a newspaper face), in addition to viewing it on screen. The limited resolution of the screen (especially at ‘text sizes’) means only part of the typeface design can be accurately represented – some of Bembo’s design details must disappear because there are too few pixels to physically represent them. Of course, larger sizes on screen yield more pixels and, therefore, more design detail. Our Enhanced Screen Quality fonts are ‘tuned’ so that small size fonts have an optimal letter shape for low resolution and larger sizes/resolutions retain the details of the original.

For example, at a small size, the terminal on a lowercase ‘e’ touches the bowl, the shape closes up and can become unrecognizable. A delta hint would be applied to flatten the terminal – hence making the ‘e’ recognizable.

Another example: if a typeface has subtle flaring in stems or serifs – we will ‘suppress’ the flare (using various hinting methods) at smaller screen sizes and then ‘allow’ the flare at larger, more appropriate sizes.

WYSIWYG -what-you-see-is-what-you-get
This notion is often misinterpreted. ‘Jaggedness’ will always exist at low resolutions – even in a fine-tuned font (an 8pt ‘e’ at 72dpi will always be more jaggy then an ‘e’ at 300dpi). What we can strive for in making fonts WYSIWYG is for the relative color, metrics and shape to be the same across a full range of resolutions.

Color
The ‘e’ may be designed to be the same weight as the ‘o’; therefore, these two letters should always be the same number of pixels thick (on screen and print).

Metrics
Line lengths should be the same on screen and printer, therefore the advance width of the low resolution letter should be proportional to the advance width of the ‘e’ at high resolution.

Shape
ESQ fonts will minimize the effects of low resolution by helping symmetrical shapes remain symmetrical and maintaining contrast relationships of thick and thin strokes. Most important, our diagonal hinting is unsurpassed in the industry. Most companies leave diagonals unhinted. For example, the ‘W’ strokes may not maintain the same weight as the stems of the ‘H’. The color of a paragraph of text suffers a great deal when individual letters or strokes within a letter are a different weight or shape the than their neighbors.

Our ESQ fonts are hinted with a full range of pixel sizes tuned with deltas. In addition to screen sizes, even small printer sizes can be (and are in ESQ fonts) improved with deltas.

Testing
Our fonts are tested and approved with the same test tools Microsoft uses to approve fonts for shipment in all Microsoft products.