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I LANSTON TYPE COMPANY I GERALD GIAMPA I
¶ I BECAME interested in digitizing fonts in 1987. Not out of any peculiar love for plastic and television screens or anything deviate like that.
I founded an independant corporation which shared resources at 1340 East Pender Street with the Northland Letterpress Company and later with Lanston.
Martin Jensen said, "You'r not a tycoon, you'r a racoon!"
My first obstacle was with Ikarus software. Well not the program, the price, full package $300,000. US. At that time it was incapable of producing PostScript fonts. The second problem, Adobe Systems Inc. had proprietary PostScript hinting software not available for other players in the industry, meaning me. At that time Ikarus font outlining software was incapable of either function.
My engineers and I cobbled together a PostScript patch so Lanston was able to begin producing PostScript fonts. Doctor Peter Karow released MacIkarus with a PostScript font format generator at the Seybold Conference that fall and Adobe made PostScript open to other developers.
I wish they told us earlier.
Jim Rimmer was the director of typography in the firm. I had my sights on the Lanston Type Library. I got along just fine with Jim but not well with some of the other directors. I think some of them were on drugs or something because they sure acted wierd. One Honyiak wore shades, talked like a Cambie Street hoodlum and came to be known as Mr. leg breaker. He did not approve the purchase. I raised other monies.
Mr. Leg Breaker was sure sore about that. That's for sure. Real sore about that.
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¶ WORKING on a digital font in the pioneer days of desktop publishing. These were exciting times for me. I don't mean computers but rather the business, travel, the money, money, money and more money. There were several things I found out about people, nothing good as you may have expected. People are greedy. Yes, they are. Very, very greedy.
Some people thought I was Santa Clause.
Also I found out that money really isn't the issue for me. I had more than I needed. (Oh, the stories I could tell.)
One day I went out, bought some exensive new clothes, got a hair cut, beard trimmed a fancy "Mont Blanc" fountain pen and a good bottle of wine.
I came to realize the most important thing in life is wine.
Giampa is a trademark of Gerald Giampa, Lanston is a trademark of the Lanston Type Company / Gerald Giampa and his interests. Postscript, Adobe, Ikarus are all trademarks of their respective owners. Adobe is a trademark of Adobe Systems