The Dream-Ware Group
Frontier Font v2.0
Documents - Using the Font
Anyone who has played the Frontier games will know just how unique the Frontier typeface is and so in trying to reproduce it as a TrueType Font (TTF) there are inevitably going to be some limitation with its use.
On this page I will try to provide some useful tips on how to gain the best results.
Font Sizes
The FE2 and FFE games were designed using a screen resolution of 320x200 and the only font size used was 10px (pixels) or the equiverlent 8pt. In designing the Frontier typeface for the modern OS I concentrated on creating pixel exact sizes, so using multiples of 10px the Frontier text is reproduced exactly.
Producing a pixel exact font is all well and true but it wouldn't be much use if you were limited to just those sizes. With this in mind I spent many weeks on making it look as close to the original style as possible at many different fonts sizes. Currently the font has been optimized at sizes of 9-30, 32, 48px and only multiples of 10px above this (40, 50, 60, etc) have been tested.
Below is a table with the px to pt conversions as well as the 'web system' which should help you get the best reults.
| Pixel (px) | Point (pt) | Web | Comments |
| 9 | 7 | 0 | |
| 10 | 8 | 1 | Frontier exact |
| 11 | 8 | ||
| 12 | 9 | ||
| 13 | 10 | 2 | |
| 14 | 11 | ||
| 15 | 11 | ||
| 16 | 12 | 3 | |
| 17 | 13 | More Uniform than Web 4 | |
| 18 | 14 | 4 | |
| 19 | 14 | Bolder - better than Web 4 | |
| 20 | 15 | Frontier exact | |
| 21 | 16 | ||
| 22 | 17 | ||
| 23 | 17 | More Uniform than Web 5 | |
| 24 | 18 | 5 | |
| 25 | 19 | Bolder - better than Web 5 | |
| 26 | 20 | ||
| 27 | 20 | ||
| 28 | 21 | ||
| 29 | 22 | ||
| 30 | 23 | Frontier exact | |
| 32 | 24 | 6 | |
| 34 | 26 | Bolder - better than Web 6 | |
| 40 | 30 | Frontier exact | |
| 48 | 36 | 7 | |
| 50 | 38 | Frontier exact |
As you can see from the above table the web system is just off from the pixel exact sizes. When creating web pages you may want to consider using the pixel size format to allow more control over how the text looks. Using CSS is a good tool for this.
Bold and Italic
In reproducing the Frontier typeface as exactly as possible I had to sacrifice both the Bold and Italic text styles. The typeface limitations mean that this font may produce unexpected results in their use.
Saying that, at certain sizes, these styles can be used while retaining elegible text and it can even look quite effective.
Hopefully this information will help you achieve the desired results in bringing the Frontier look to the world wide web.
