120 MacDirectory
FONTLAB > THE WORLD LEADER IN FONT SOFTWARE
"FontLab is the world leader in font
software. Companies like Microsoft, Apple,
Adobe, IBM, Linotype, and many others
use Fontlab software to create and edit
fonts." —
My knowledge of FontLab was zero when I
placed a call to Ted Harrison. Ted is the
North American part of a partnership
between himself and Yuri Yarmola, located
in St. Petersburg, Russia. Their home
offices and all the design work take place
in Russia. Ted handles the marketing end
for FontLab, which has an office in Port
Angeles, Wash.
MacDirectory >
Ted, tell me about
FontLab….
Ted Harrison > FontLab was started up by
my partner Yuri Yarmola and myself way
back in 1993 I think it was. Basically he
does the development side of the
business and I do the marketing, finance
and administration stuff. He is Russian and
he had developed a product way back
then that was sort of the precursor of the
present FontLab Studio. They wanted to
sell it somewhere outside of Russia and I
just happened to be at the right place at
the right time.
So to make a long story short, he
continued developing and I continued
selling and we eventually became
profitable after about four years. New
products kept cropping up and pretty
soon we had a whole line of products that
do things with fonts. The original product,
sort of our flagship, was our font editor
that allows people to design and create
new fonts and to edit existing fonts. Let's
say someone may need a Yen sign in a
font that doesn't have one or they may
need an italic in a font that doesn't have a
real italic version – or bold or other
symbols in a particular font. Whatever
they need to do to a font our font editor
is going to pretty much do it.
The product was primarily PC in the
beginning and after about three or four
years we expanded into the Mac. It has
been Mac and PC for over a decade now.
MD >
My readers probably know a lot
more about FontLab than I do but who is
Ted Harrison?
TH > Not much to say really. I sort of ran
into Yuri through a mutual friend at one
point. He knew that Yuri was looking a
programmer looking for someone outside
of Russia and he knew that I had some
business credentials with a MBA and he
got us together. My background is quite
spotty, or checkered I might say. I started
out my undergrad as an electrical
engineer and then I switched my major,
while getting a lot of computer
programming during the
engineering phase, I switched
my major to biology and
became a medical student.
Went on to medical school, got
my degree and went on to do
graduate work in emergency
medicine, was a specialist in
emergency and critical care for
twenty-five years. I went back to
school – after about ten years
out in the real world I went back
to school and got my MBA and it
was shortly after that I met Yuri
and we started up FontLab.
MD >
So this has become your
life's career.
TH > Yes, this is my day job. After 25
years in emergency medicine I sort of
retired from clinical practice, FontLab
had gotten big enough by that time
that it was giving me a satisfactory
income so I didn't have to practice
medicine to support myself anymore
so I just sort of switched jobs –
switched careers at that point.
MD >
Ted, what one point would you
like to get over to our readers about
your product?
TH > We bought Fontographer
Macromedia 10 years ago and we have
been in the process of upgrading it and
trying to get a new version out and that is
finally going to happen. Either the end
of … (September) or sometime in October
so by the time this interview gets out
there the new version of Fontographer
version 5 should be hitting the streets.
Macromedia hadn't done much with the
product and it has been almost 14 years
since it was upgraded. We know that lots
and lots of people still use it and we
provide tech support for it. It had gotten
really old and out of compatibility. The
newest version will be completely
compatible with all the OS and it will have
a number of new features I think people
will like also.
MD >
Thanks, Ted. You can find FontLab
at .
WORDS BY LEE GRIGGS
COMPANY PROFILE
