I have a problem with the fonts Titillium...

[Renaissance Man]

"are people who publish their fonts for free expected to provide support, upgrades or customization to the specific needs of their free users?"

No, but the fonts should work.

I own Jos Buivenga's Calluna and love it, and I really like some of his free fonts. Fontin is screwed up however, and he won't fix it. Fair enough, but I think it reflects negatively on him and his other work. If I were in his position, I'd either fix it or take it down.

I haven't kept score, but I'm pretty sure I've had more problem with paid fonts from well known designers than I've had with free fonts. That proves nothing. Just saying.

[nina]

"If it was a car, Titillium would be recalled."
Sorry but this really is one of the more inane font-to-physical-world comparisons I've heard lately. Malfunctioning cars freakin kill people. That's why they eventually, sometimes, get recalled. Not because of some sort of inherent morals, or professionalism, or whatever of the automotive industry that the font world lacks. Besides, I really haven't seen too many cars that were available for free.

I personally wouldn't use Titillium, but as with most free fonts, you simply get what you pay for. Complaining seems pretty pointless to me.

[Renaissance Man]

As with most free fonts, you simply get what you pay for. Complaining seems pretty pointless to me.

Au contraire. Sometimes with free fonts you get more than you pay for, and sometimes with paid-for fonts you get less than you paid for. I don't care if it's a paid-for or a free font. If it does not work is should be fixed or removed. Of the more than half-dozen paid-for fonts that would not work as downloaded, generally the vendor corrected the problem; some slowly, some begrudgingly, and some gladly. At least one I had to fix myself.

I recently downloaded the free font Veggieburger and had a problem with it. The designer acknowledged the problem and said he was unaware of it; within hours, he fixed it and emailed me the corrected font. Better service than I've ever gotten from a designer or vendor for a paid font with a problem. A class act.

When I wrote to Jos Buivenga about Fontin, he was kind enough to reply, and he agreed with me, but said he didn't have the time to fix it. Fair enough.

Let me try to be clear about my position. I'm not "negative" on free fonts. I'm not "negative" on paid-for fonts. I love fonts that work. I hate fonts that don't work. I love people that accept responsibility for their work. Do I expect tons of "free" service from makers of free fonts? No! Do I expect type designers who charge for their fonts to give me a font that works out of the box? Absolutely! Does that always happen? Absolutely not.

I'm getting sick and tired of type designers and typophiles who piss and moan about people who want free fonts, and then, usually in the same breath, defend type designers who charge for their fonts when they don't work by saying "Sh*t happens." If I'm paying good money for what I expect to be good fonts, sh*t shouldn't happen. That should be the difference between professionals and amateurs. The high and mighty who think they can charge for fonts and deliver fonts that don't work should get off their high horse. Some free font designers put you to shame.

[DrDoc]

Yes, but in this particular instance, Titillium is a free font. To continue your awful car analogy, if someone gives you a car for free, are you going to make him or her pay for the service when something goes wrong? I agree that if you buy a font with a commercial license that does not allow modification, then it should work out of the box. I also agree that this does not always happen, and I agree that type designers, if they want to maintain reputations as producers of quality work, should be obliged to fix whatever problems there are. Most do fix these problems when asked. However, you should not expect the same out of the designer of a free font with a license that allows modification.

This is how the free market works. What does this person who gave you their fonts for free stand to gain from fixing a bug, or lose from not fixing it?

[Renaissance Man]

Credibility.

[Micha Mirck]

Maybe this should be a different post.

I think complaining about a gift is not very nice.

I will not mention names here, but in the last six month a clients of mine licensed some font from two different smaller foundries. One foundry also had the naming set the “Titillium” way, so in Word only the Black Italic was functioning. It took a lot of time and effort to get good fonts, since they first claimed the fonts were okay in Adobe CS.

The other foundry delivered fonts that didn’t work well with Universal Type Server. They knew about this problem, but blamed UTS. The designers wanted to use the font, but couldn't. The EULA states no modification etc. etc. etc, and the foundry claims that the fonts are 100% okay.
So my moral question would be; to fix or not to fix the fonts in this case??

[kevintheophile]

Please stop discussing. I've just received more another Luciano's e-mail. He told me, that tomorrow he would correct all the fonts and send me the complete family with new fonts' names:

1 = thin
250 = light
400 = regular
600 = medium
800 = bold
999 = xbold

When he will send me, I'll send for FontsQuirrel for substituting all the failed fonts and the problem will be removed.

PLEASE BE PATIENT!

[jkidwell]

Micha,

If you could send me the found the foundry names that had issues in UTS, we'll work with the foundries to clarify why they are being flagged as corrupt, and see what we can do about it.

Jim Kidwell
jkidwell at extensis.com

[Renaissance Man]

Please stop discussing.

Not your call.

[kevintheophile]

Where is FontSquirrel? I need his e-mail...

[Peter Van Lancker]

Now that these technical problems are resolved, how do you feel about Titillium?

[Renaissance Man]

Now that these technical problems are resolved...

Corrected fonts still not available at Font Squirrel.

[getho]

I love this font, but it doesn't contain smart quotes. I'm a total font newbie but I've had a go before modifying a glyph in an open source font. Not sure what I used. IS there a freebie program out there that would let me edit it? As its open source that would be OK wouldn't it? ANd presumably I could sort out the naming at the same time?

[fontsquirrel]

I'm confused. I'm pretty sure we have the latest version up. Why do you think otherwise?

[JanekZ]

version made 2010.05.13. There are these two quotes:
U+201d quotedblright, U+201e quotedblbase. You need to make U+201c and fix up some other glyphs.
getho > FontForge https://typography.guru/forums/topic/81038-forwarding

[hyperameba]

kevintheophile,

did you ever get the fixed font?
i'm struggling with the same problem
can you send me a link to titillium with fixed font family styles?

many thanks