The Kara Collection is a collection of fonts, backgrounds and tools for the people doing special effects in pictures, titling and presentations.
This is not your average font collection containing just about the same fonts seen everywhere. This fontset contains Colored fonts and even Animated Fonts! I am quoting from the excellent AmigaGuide format documentation from the CD here.
As this CD-ROM goes into production, the Amiga remains the first and only personal computer to include system support for multicolored fonts ('ColorFonts'). The ColorFont format, originally developed by Inter/Active Softworks in the Calligrapher software, was incorporated as a standard feature into the Amiga operating system beginning from version 2.0. ColorFonts are rendered using multicolored bitmaps (up to 256 colors) rather than a single bitplane or vector description used to build monochrome fonts.Kara Fonts, designed by Kara Blohm, are certainly the most famous collection of professional Amiga ColorFonts. The Kara Collection CD-ROM contains 80 Amiga ColorFonts, which are stored in the 'ColorFonts' drawer. The CD-ROM also includes hundreds of alternate palettes (for example, to render the same font in gold, steel, etc.), and copies of the ColorFonts pre-converted into non-standard file formats required by specific programs such as Broadcast Titler by InnoVision Technology, and PowerTitler and X-Titler by ClassX.
The Colored fonts in this CD are one of the most coolest looking fonts ever seen anywhere! Even the usage of these fonts couldn't be easier. Just like your normal fonts, just copy them to your fonts drawer and that is just about it. Ok, you do have to use the provided palettes to make them look like they are intended to look, but you can just load the palette from the CD and off you go. Just imagine Chrome and Gold colored fonts on your video titles or presentation animations. No normal one color font could make the same impact as these do. I'll include here a list of available ColorFonts in the CD and the available sizes.
Font Size Bevel 55 72 84 104 Brick 55 72 84 103 Bullion 78 Capsule 82 Cast 60 72 90 114 Chisel 50 62 76 98 ChiselScript 86 98 116 ChiselSerif 55 72 84 104 Chrome 55 72 80 104 ChromeChiselScript 115 ChromeScript 88 ChromeSerif 75 100 124 Column 55 72 84 98 Embossed 68 86 108 Engraved 74 104 Glass 78 104 GoldExtrude 78 104 132 Granite 55 72 84 100 GraniteChisel 76 104 128 KaraBrushed 75 100 130 KaraChiselScriptRoman 80 100 130 KaraGothicChisel 104 KaraGothicSerif 75 100 130 KaraRomanExtrude 80 105 130 KaraTubular 98 Marble 55 72 84 104 MarbleBevel 76 100 120 Wood 58 72 90 114
Other big chunk of the CD is taken by the plaquegrounds, i.e. different sized 'backgrounds' like marble, wood and granite. The scheme goes like this. You have 8 different styles (like already mentioned marble) in 4 different sizes (A, B, C, D = biggest) and in different plaques like square and framed 'boxes'. Unfortunately I just don't know how to explain this, but trust me they come in all sizes and styles. These could very well be used in presentation slides or titling purposes, or why not just resize and modify them and use them in your www page as a background to buttons or alike. Lets take marble for example: These are THE most realistic looking marble backgrounds I have ever seen. To get closer to real thing you would have to go to nearest place where they sell the real marble elements :-).
Now if the fonts and the plaques aren't enough you are also given the tools to handle them. Demo version of PPaint 6.4 is provided and is also used as default viewer for everything in this CD. It is not full version and you can't save your productions as freely as in full version, but you'll get the idea of the program since nothing else is missing.
Now you have these really nice colored fonts but you'd really need to change some parts of a certain fonts. What would you do? Just start the ColorType program provided on the CD. The all you need to modify and create ColorFonts. ColorType comes with quite similar interface to PPaint so if you are familiar with PPaint you'll get hang of it in no time. Now that I think of it, you will get hang of it in no time even if you had never seen PPaint. Really easy to use so no problems there. Nice and clean and gets the job done.
All in all this CD is a must for professionals needing good looking fonts for their presentations and/or tools needed to create them. Only bad side abut this CD is that there could have been even more of the plaquegrounds. Given the size (also means quality) of the existing ones, I do understand why there isn't any more of them, but hey You can never be too satisfied, now can you?