Tools influence everything we do with them. While we accept this for hammers and violins, it is sometimes difficult to acknowledge this for our own creative work. But it is right in front of us: the method of sketching will affect your drawings: either you draw what you’re thinking or you don’t. Your analysis of form will influence the direction of a project: either you isolate a problem or you don’t. The software you select will make things possible (the advertised features) but it also forces you in the mold of the features it doesn’t have. The negative space of missing features. Taking control of tools means a degree independence in design. It also means a lot more work. But that’s what we’re here for.

About Erik van Blokland

Erik van Blokland, a type designer from The Hague, Netherlands, started the LettError foundry with Just van Rossum in 1989. He studied graphic design at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, and picked up the taste for type design in Gerrit Noordzij's class. The early experiments in type and code (Beowolf, Trixie, Hands) were published by FontFont. More recently Eames Century Modern at House Industries and lots of work for Photo-Lettering. Tool development became an important part of Erik's work (see Superpolator). First with Petr van Blokland and Just van Rossum in RoboFog. Later with Tal Leming in the RoboFab and UFO projects and the initial stages of the WOFF specification for webfonts. Van Blokland is a senior lecturer at the TypeMedia course of the Royal Academy of Arts.