"Giving one typeface away for free will most likely only booster sales, and it's a good deed."

[Si_Daniels]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

Via the ilovetypography blog.

Pair of graphic designers ask type designers to give away fonts...

http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/

[dezcom]

Not another one :<(

ChrisL

[Frode Bo Helland]

Get these guys to post their fonts over here for critique!

[dan_reynolds]

There are a lot of people out there who seem to be very interested in free fonts. Free in either sense of the word. Funnily enough, most of these people are font users and/or people active in the free software movement in some way or another. But how many of these new initiatives are founded by type designers?

I think that it is a case of priorities. I am a type designer, and I care about *one thing* more than anything else. And that is letters, and drawing them. I don't really care about licensing debates. I find all the manifestos and the rhetoric rather dull.

Every week now, it seems, more people start asking for "free" font projects. But what would be even cooler would be for some of these people, or really all of these people, to start just drawing type. Do it yourself. Or maybe with each other. Maybe you will create great results. Maybe you won't. But I am not interested in the rhetoric. The more important battles to be fought are how to make letters look good, and how to make typography better. These have very little to do with what software you use or what restrictions you do or do not place on your work. Too much energy in the wrong direction, as far as I am concerned.

[1985]

Spot on Dan!

[dezcom]

I am going to start an organization called Free Rent. Giving rent away for free will most likely only booster sales, and it's a good deed. Everybody who owns rental property or mortgages property should join and give away a bunch of property. Ofcourse I don't own any so I can't contribute but I will be doing my part by taking advantage of rent-free living.

ChrisL

[Mark Simonson]

Funny that they use the word "booster" instead of "boost". "Booster" is a noun. Also, "boost" and "booster" have multiple meanings, one of which is related to stealing. Not the best choice of words if they want to enlist type designers.

Or maybe they're confusing "booster" with "bolster"?

[Dunwich Type]

Is there a professional association for designers who want to throw up every time some self-righteous twat starts telling the rest of us that we have a responsibility to advance their agenda and should expect little or no compensation?

[hrant]

The good news is that increasingly people are realizing
that free fonts tend to suck, hard. They're waiting for us
to donate our hard-earned skills. Let's keep them waiting. :-)

There is however one good reason to release
free fonts: the "freemium" marketing model.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium
For example I could picture giving away the
roman weight and charging for everything
else, especially smallcaps, opticals, etc.

hhp

[Jan]

Fontshop does that every once in a while.

[hrant]

Proposed logo for the Free-In-Your-Dreams Typeface Design Federation:

hhp

[paragraph]

Hahaha, well done, hrant!

[nina]

:-D
Spot on.

[Dunwich Type]

Is anyone else interested in producing a free font manifesto from a type designer’s perspective? I’m thinking of a hybrid of First Things First, Free Font Manifesto, and totalitarianism. Something like this:

Part I
Most designers design a stuff nobody needs, packaging for stuff nobody needs, and advertising for stuff nobody needs. You’re all a bunch of parasites. So you’re far less entitled to your work then we are—after all, the designers who actually contribute to civilization (and pay for type without whinging) need typefaces more than they need advertisements for DVDs packaged in three-layers of non-recyclable materials.

Part II
But you need fonts for Facebook apps that market stuff nobody needs and can’t make the client pay because they promised substantial savings over a print campaign by a big agency. Nobody wants a bunch of unemployed designers running around high on spray-glue fumes vandalizing public transit with OBEY GIANT stickers (aren’t you the rebel!), so to keep you in line you’ll get free fonts.

Part III
Font designers can’t give designers the fonts they need to stay off the streets unless we have food and shelter. So to subsidize our work we need to following:
•Free housing: And good free housing in neighborhoods with coffee shops and bookstores, you can’t just stick us in Stuy-town or Kansas.
•Free education: That means our student loans get paid off and we get free tuition/room and board at Reading or The KABK.
•Free groceries: We can’t think clearly on empty-stomachs so twice-weekly deliveries of grass-fed-bison, free-range-chicken, and wild pork must be arranged.
•Etc., etc.

Part IV
Because everyone clearly has a social responsibility to make this work, all designers will be taxed at five-percent of gross revenues to provide for the font designers. In exchange, you get free fonts. Anyone who fails to cough up the five-percent will be imprisoned for an arbitrary period of time. Repeat offenders will be shot.

[lailsonbm]

I'm confused. If we can have superb free software, why can't we have high quality free type? In what means developers differs from designers?
Note that this is not a rhetoric question. I'm really curious to compare both worlds.

PS: I'm software developer, not graphic/type designer, just an enthusiast...

LAILSON BANDEIRA

[Simon Robertson]

i think i like where you are going with this james...

:-)

[dezcom]

Why can't we have "real good free" rent?

ChrisL

[merkri]

Lailson, I think it's just a cultural difference. There is good free type out there, although not as much as there could be.

Also, keep in mind that the advantages and disadvantages of free software aren't without debate either.

[cerulean]

In principle, I'm sympathetic to all sides of this subject, but one fact stands out to me: There are lots of free fonts already. Lots. Some are bad, and some are really good. Every time somebody sits there with the dozens of fonts that came with their computer, more that came with their design software, and thousands available on the internet, and starts plaintively puling about the fact that some fonts aren't free and oh why can't type makers be nice and give away those, I think somebody's got that sense of entitlement that comes of having been given too much.

[Dunwich Type]

If we can have superb free software, why can’t we have high quality free type?

As I already pointed out in a previous thread, the reason we have good free software if because businesses and governments have spent a hell of a lot of money developing good free software. The reason Firefox is free isn’t because a thousand nerds are hacking away in Mom’s basement; it’s because Google pays the Mozilla foundation for Google searches run through the Firefox search tool.

We can have good free fonts if someone is willing to pay the font designers. That’s how some of the high-quality open-source fonts on the market came to be. But when sanctimonious academics, graphic designers, and open-source proponents can’t bring anything to the table but idealistic manifestos about—cue weepy violin solo—a “gift to humanity” or “making a contribution to the society” they’re insulting type designers without proposing a realistic solution to the problem that they insist exists.

[Yehan]

This reminds me of the old maxim about cheap, good and fast design. You can only have 2. If you want it cheap and fast, it won't be good. If you want it fast and good, it won't be cheap. And if you want it good and cheap, it won't be fast.

There are some real nice free fonts out there, but seriously, everyone needs to live. I agree..pple who ask these things should start making their own...I'm starting to.

[Simon Robertson]

i like getting free stuff as much as the next guy, but i also support commercial type,a and have bought many typefaces because the offer me what i want and are just generally better.

another bonus is that i can contact the foundry/type designer and request changes/additions and so far the people i have spoken to have been very helpful and tried to accommodate me.

of course there are exceptions, but not many.

[hrant]

And tellingly, virtually everybody who starts making his
own immediately stops asking others to give theirs away!
From a distance type design can look like a menial task that
requires motivation and not much else, but soon enough
you realize that no amount of talent, real or imagined, can
make up for long stretches of observation, thought and
practice that are required to end up with something other
people would pay money for. Most people who start dabbling
in type design end up thinking we're a bunch of loonies to
even bother. But even loonies have to pay bills.

hhp

[Dunwich Type]

Most people who start dabbling in type design end up thinking we’re a bunch of loonies to even bother.

s/thinking/discovering ;)

[Simon Robertson]

it looks like one of the founders of this place did make the font that's there:

http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/fonts/1-junction

Junction made by Caroline Hadilaksono

Inspired by my favorite humanist sans serif typefaces, such as Meta, Myriad, and Scala, Junction is where the best qualities of serif and sans serif typefaces come together. It has the hand drawn and human qualities of a serif, and still retains the clarity and efficiencies of a sans serif typeface. It combines the best of both worlds.