# Kontakt Resolutions / Font clarity advice



## AndyD76 (Jan 30, 2018)

Hi Everyone, Just a quick question..

Every time i export my png wallpaper from photoshop the fonts i use aren't quite as sharp as the "default" font used in kontakt which looks a bit odd.

I've tried experimenting with TTF / OTF fonts and Pixel Fonts but it hasn't seem to work as well as trying different bit depths and Dpi's but i can't seem to see any significant improvement.

I just wondered if anyone has any hints on resolution settings or ways to export the highest possible quality to try to overcome this? or what programmes you use to do your designs?

Thanks in advance

Andy


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## P.N. (Feb 1, 2018)

Hi, the default Kontakt font is not antialiased and it's pixel-aligned, so it's very sharp.

Try different antialiasing settings in Photoshop (sharp, crisp, strong, etc).

Best regards,
Paulo.


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## paoling (Feb 2, 2018)

I also suggest to control the contrast between the fonts and their backgrounds. It tends to be classier and gentler to the eye, but it also reduce the blurring effect from aliasing that you get with very strong font colors. Here are two extracts from a GUI I'm working on.


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## P.N. (Feb 3, 2018)

paoling said:


> I also suggest to control the contrast between the fonts and their backgrounds. It tends to be classier and gentler to the eye, but it also reduce the blurring effect from aliasing that you get with very strong font colors. Here are two extracts from a GUI I'm working on.



That's great advice too. Extreme contrasts, in spite of seeming like a good idea initially, can actually lead to a lack of focus and fatigue to the end user, depending on the complexity of the GUI.

There are some online resources that tackle these and other issues for GUI designers - colour visibility, contrast, icon conformaty, alignment, font, etc. I'm sure the OP can find great tips on this subject. 

On a side note, it would be insteresting if Native Instruments is considering the following updates for Kontakt 6:

- More fonts and or colours;
- Size control;
- Ability to include custom fonts in otf format in the resource container;

Cheers,

P.N.


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## paoling (Feb 3, 2018)

Yes they would be great additions.. 

I'm totally a self learner concerning GUI design, but I've learnt some stuff in these years:

1) Use less fonts as possible, maybe just one with its variations (Bold, Thin, Etc). 
2) Best to have small font with some void space around it than a big font that occupies all the available space.
3) Give stuff a space that is proportional to its importance: so if you have a control which doesn't affect the sound a lot, but you consider necessary, just hide somewhere to reduce its weight in the GUI.
4) When you have to choose colors or variations of colors, change just 1 parameter of the HSLA (Hue, Saturation, Luminance, Alpha) spectrum. For example in the example above all those icons with numbers have the same brightness and saturation, while just the hue changes.
5) Prefer flat design than skeumorph. Skeumorph is nice when you are emulating a hardware thing, but it tends to look outdated sooner than flat clean design. It's a nice thing, though, since 3D stuff is harder to make properly.
6) Sometimes if you can hide labels it's better. For example imagine that you have 5 layers of sound. You don't have to put a label called "volume" on each of these layers, just put a slider and the user will auto-guess what it does.
7) Never use true blacks, a very dark gray is gentler to the eye.
8) Find inspiration in stuff that you like, for example, for parts of that GUI above I took inspiration from Logic, sometimes I look on Dribbble to see the designs of very cool GUIs. Website design is perfectly appliable to GUI as well.
9) If your instrument is quite complex, provide a kind of "easy" mode with few important parameters.


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## soniccouture (Feb 3, 2018)

in my experience it's best to use the Kontakt fonts as much as possible ( limited though they are), because they DO always look better than something baked in from Photoshop.


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## P.N. (Feb 3, 2018)

paoling said:


> Yes they would be great additions..
> 
> I'm totally a self learner concerning GUI design, but I've learnt some stuff in these years:
> 
> ...



Those are guidelines i tend to follow as well. I think we're on the same page on this. 

Regarding the skeumorph tip, some clients/users do like some sort of hardware or pseudo-hardware visual emulation, but personally, i prefer the clean flat (or almost flat) look myself too.
But then there's the marketing and "wow" side of things that can play a part in those type of choices.

Cheers.


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