InDesign vs Kittl

Carl Shank • January 30, 2023

InDesign vs Kittl

InDesign vs Kittl. Perhaps this is an unfair contest right from the start. Adobe's InDesign is a well-crafted layout program with expert features for type crafting and setting. It is my go-to program for professional layout jobs. Kittl is a graphics program available on the internet for free, though to unlock its many templates and graphic powers, a monthly ($15 for Pro users) or yearly fee ($120 for Pro users) is necessary.


Kittl (www.kittl.com), built by Tobias Saul, allows real time advanced text editing with built in text manipulation features, like shadows and easy to use text slanting, rise, text on a circle or an angle and textual distortion features. Its claim to fame is the multitude of template styles available to the user, especially the fancy vector ornament library, shapes and banners and texture collections built into the program. It is easy to use and  manipulate and change elements and colors and then export your finished product to a JPG or PGN file (or PDF for Pro users) or post your creation on many social platforms. It advances WYSWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) to a whole new level, and for many users — it is FREE!


Adobe InDesign, of course, is part of Adobe's Creative Cloud offerings, and available by subscription to users. The subscription price is substantial per year, but you get a number of professionally designed layout and graphical programs, like InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and many others. It is heralded and used by many graphical and video editing professionals worldwide, including myself. The training curve for InDesign and other such programs is also substantial, but well worth the time and effort for professional uses.


I have included a comparison of a poster I did for a client in both InDesign and then an adaptation in the Kittl program. Both look acceptable for use and possible publication, though I did not attempt to publish the Kittl design. I still like the preciseness of InDesign over Kittl, and I noted that my personal type font (CARE Font) looks grainy in the Kittl mock-up contrasted to the InDesign poster. However, for Victorian swirls and ornamentation, Kittl has many advantages over the traditional Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop programming and steps necessary.


Successful Layout & Design

Font Restoration Mechanics

By Carl Shank • May 13, 2025
Font Restoration Mechanics. Let me begin by giving an example from the world of theology, my first love and profession. Many people, even many non-Christian people, know that we are saved “by faith.” But faith in what or who? Well, faith in God. But this is imprecise. It is faith in Jesus Christ the Bible tells us. But once again, this too can be mistaken as just an intellectual nod of the mind toward Jesus without a real life change or transformation. More detailed biblical discussion, with appropriate distinctions, must be made so that we don’t make “faith” a human, works-based activity we do to please God. Or some existential “experience” with no definable qualities. Digging even deeper, faith saves no one, though it is absolutely necessary for salvation. It is Jesus Christ who saves. Faith becomes an “instrument” of salvation. Theologians have been unpacking this salvation “by faith alone” for centuries. Books and “how-to” sermons have been written and preached and taught here. Do you see the tremendous amount of refinement that “faith” requires? Precise typography claims similar distinctions and refinements in letter development and typeface creation. CARE Typography has been able to restore older hand-drawn fonts from various sources to modern digital typefaces. One of those most prolific sources has been from Alphabets Old and New — For The Use of Craftsmen, With An Introductory Essay on ‘Art in the Alphabet’” by Lewis F. Day, London, 1910.There is a wealth of older fonts shown by Day, one of them being a Roman Forum font from an old Roman Forum engraving. It might be thought that to copy and paste the letters and import them into a font design program, like FontLab’s Fontographer, is simple and rather straight-forward. Not so. From a font designer’s work, the transfer from a screenshot of an old book to a clear and professional open type font (SEE my Blog on “Open Type Fonts” in “More About Fonts” March 9, 2021) takes care and lots of work. It is both tedious and time intensive. The details of such work are often overlooked. Here’s an inside look at such work.

Wide Is Beautiful

By Carl Shank • March 15, 2025
Wide Is Beautiful What makes a typeface beautiful? Aesthetically pleasing fonts or typefaces have differing qualities that make them suitable and beautiful in different contexts and uses. I have chosen six (6) wide or "extended" font faces to highlight the inherent beauty and usability of such type. The samples chosen range from well used Adobe fonts to a specialty antique wide font CARE Typography crafted from an old fashioned type book published by Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc of New York back in 1945.
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