Angus R. Shamal, ARS Type: «Most people who use high quality typefaces in their profession choose them because they know they can rely on them to perform effortlessly and consistently well in the tasks they were designed for. An important factor in building such trust in a typeface, is good letter spacing and kerning.My collaboration with Igino Marini and his iKern system started at the last stages of my redesign of ARS Maquette Pro. Early on I knew this will be a complex project that involves not only over 1200 characters per style, but also many alternates and a Display cuts, which would require different types of spacing — all coexisting within each single style of the family. This proved to be a challenging process to both myself and the iKern system. In order for this to work well, it needed a good grasp of the design and its theories — something that mathematics alone would not achieve. Igino understands this — and thanks to his true professional and hands-on approach in this project, we were able to pull it off in a reasonable amount of time avoiding undesirable compromises. The iKern system excelled as an invaluable and flexible tool that is able to adapt even to the most complex of tasks. Hopefully the results speak for themselves.»