- Letraset
Letraset is a company which manufactures sheets of artwork elements which can be transferred to artwork being prepared; see the article on
screentone for details. The name "Letraset" was often used to refer generically to sheets ofdry transfer rablelettering of any brand. This technique was very widespread for lettering and other elements before the advent of thecomputer techniques ofword processing anddesktop publishing .Before computer techniques, when artwork was prepared by hand, Letraset sheets were available with letters in a large range of typefaces, styles, and sizes, symbols, and other graphic elements. The letters could be transferred one by one to artwork being prepared. This was always a tedious job, but the alternative, to do the lettering by hand, was also tedious and required grahic artist skills.
The name "Letraset" comes from the lettering application, once ubiquitous but now rarely used, although still available. Currently, Letraset's line of print patterns and textures are more commonly used than its lettering.
Letraset saw a decline in the sales of their materials in the early 1990s so moved into the desktop publishing industry, releasing software packages for the
Macintosh such asImageStudio andColorStudio . These never saw widespread success. However, as Letraset held the rights to their fonts that had been popular on the dry transfer sheets, it made sense to enter the digital font market. Letraset thus began releasing many fonts in formats such asPostScript .Letraset is based on the Kingsnorth Industrial Estate in
Ashford, Kent , UK. [http://www.letraset.com/design/]See also
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Dry transfer
*Screentone External links
* [http://www.letraset.com Letraset – Official website]
* [http://db.tidbits.com/article/3683 ColorStudio wins MacUser Editor's Choice award 1990]
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