R.I.P. Janusz M. Nowacki

Janusz M. Nowacki, GUST's honorary member, passed away on June 7th, 2020.

Before joining GUST and devoting himself to fonts, successfully as with everything he did, he was a successful fine-art photographer. His, very recent, last collection titled “Moving Sands - Słowiński National Park” was shown in Warsaw, Gdańsk and at the BachoTeX conference.

In the early 90s, albeit being a non-programmer, he nonetheless saw and did appreciate the potential of TeX for his then new enterprise. This made him join GUST and seek help there. He was right: TeX scripting allowed him to produce high quality rubber stamps quickly and with astonishing proficiency.

He then started to give back: in his first big project and accomplishment he prepared the PL fonts, i.e., CM fonts adapted to the Polish language, in the PostScript (Type 1) format, thus making them available outside of TeX.

Janusz did not stop there: his accomplishments include the digital replicas of several typescripts: Antykwa Toruńska, Antykwa Półtawskiego, Cyklop, Iwona and Kurier.  Antykwa Póltawskiego was, among others, used to typeset the monumental collection Frederic Chopin's works by Ignacy Paderewski.

For many years Janusz was part of the GUST e-foundry team and participated in the LM and TeX Gyre projects until illness crossed out his plans.

We pride ourselves that we could twice honor him with the GUSTaw prize. Perhaps he deserved more…

Horace's words non omnis moriar - I shall not all die - do apply to Janusz and his accomplishments: what he added to the pool will for a long time function in our culture. As will he live on in our memories, in memories of those for whom he kept coming back to BachoTeX conferences “because of the people”. He was a magnificent, caring and wise chum, colleague and friend…