Typophile - Fontstruct - Comments

Your typeface rocks, Eben.

Ricardo Cordoba — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:33:30 -0700

Your typeface rocks, Eben. Very cool work!

Hmmm Me too. And actually

Eben Sorkin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:01:48 -0700

Hmmm Me too. And actually having kerned my little font battler I wouldn’t mind if I could somehow post it especially if it could be sold for $2-3 or something. Putting that infrastructure in is not a minor task though - i bet.

I want to say I appreciate

cerulean — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:17:51 -0700

I want to say I appreciate that you’ve answered these questions clearly, and would have appreciated it equally even if the answers had not been the ones I hoped for.

I apologize if I seemed confrontational. It’s just easy to become gun-shy in regard to services that handle member-generated content and have ambiguous terms of use. Many companies, from Café Press to Six Apart, have repeatedly stumbled into these problems, whether through accidental misunderstandings, casual disregard, or deliberate greed. An artist has to be careful these days lest he jump onto what looks like a great resource and find he’s given all his work away.

Even though trying to ascribe value to raster font design may indeed be a lost cause at this point, and even though it’s clear now that I’m welcome to try on my own while still availing myself of this nice free tool you’ve provided, consider this suggestion: I would happily pay a small sum of money for a special account with which I could offer a particularly elaborate FontStruction through the FontStruct site for a dollar, which people may pay just for the convenience of not constructing it themselves... Not a trivial thing to implement, I know, what with processing payments and sending out checks and all, but it could be worthwhile.

> wouldn’t it make sense

Stephen Coles — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:47:43 -0700

> wouldn’t it make sense to point out how the creations can never be as good as a real FontShop typeface from a real type designer?

“Good” is subjective. ;) Seriously, I believe the contrast is already made clear in the differences between the FontStructions and the FontShop fonts featured at the bottom of the Gallery pages.

The enhancements we plan to add are focused on community, discussion, and sharing more than on creating the next Garamond, Helvetica, or even Cholla.

Some commercial fonts are

Ricardo Cordoba — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:02:04 -0700

Some commercial fonts are already quite modular in their design - how would you react to FontStructed versions of existing commercial fonts?

Roger, I believe there is already an example of that: user mattmc created a FontStruct version of Wim Crouwel’s New Alphabet, and there is an existing commercial version made by The Foundry.

thanks for the thorough

beejay — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:58:39 -0700

thanks for the thorough reply.

oops, missed Rob Meek’s name, but I definitely recognize his work.

http://www.robmeek.com/

> it makes sense that this info may be replaced.

just a humble suggestion, but from a creator point-of-view, more of these questions ought to be answered on the site, with more specific language.

re: modular vs. non-modular

I got a similar feeling as Kevin’s, when I visited a week ago, and it seems that the verbiage has been softened since then. It didn’t bother me too much, because the term, modular font, is already a pejorative as it relates to type. But what’s interesting is seeing faces like Cholla Slab pop up as non-modular, when it clearly is modular with some finish. And don’t most typefaces have modular underpinnings? — shapes/units repeat, and type designers use the repeating shapes for other letters. Really, what is the determinant as to what constitutes a modular font, just out of curiosity?

modular: Designed with standardized units or dimensions, as for easy assembly and repair or flexible arrangement and use.

It’s an interesting conflict for Fontshop. If you are opening up type design to the masses with a clever app, and you want to build a crowdsourced community and serve advertising, wouldn’t it make sense to point out how the creations can never be as good as a real FontShop typeface from a real type designer? And actually keep Rob’s application from getting too advanced?

But then are they truly serving this new community, and the needs of the new community?

Fontstruct, and a crowdsourced type design community — these are such landscape changers in terms of innovation ... but maybe it really won’t have much affect on the ’regular’ type industry, perception of type designers, etc. But it sure does raise a lot of questions. :)

Another question for you,

Roger S. Nelsson — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:28:42 -0700

Another question for you, Stephen:

Some commercial fonts are already quite modular in their design - how would you react to FontStructed versions of existing commercial fonts?

Legally they would probably be OK, as they undeniably are made from scratch, and as long they don’t use registered names they should go clear of those kind of infringements as well. And the technical quality would not be as good as the originals (at least not until you implement spacing and kerning ;) so they wouldn’t really compete.
But still...

> Does FontShop allow the

Stephen Coles — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:41:39 -0700

> Does FontShop allow the creators to:
• distribute their work elsewhere?
• sell their work via a competitor?
• strip out any FontShop ID in the font data?

Designers own their FontStructions and can either keep them private or choose to share them publicly under a Creative Commons license. So the answer to all of these would be yes. There are references to FontStruct in the font data but these do not effect the copyright of the designer. The only reference to FontShop is the FontStruct URL and trademark for FontStruct. If a user generates a font with FontStruct and then works on it with another tool, it makes sense that this info may be replaced.

> Does FontShop plan to refine any of these fonts and sell them, with royalties to the creators?

We have no specific plans in this area, but we’d certainly be in touch with the creators themselves if we did. We also welcome font submissions to the FontFont library and foundry submissions to FontShop, as usual, whether created with FontStruct or not.

> Can you tell us who built the actual app? And are there any future expansion plans (kerning, for example)?

As alluded in the site footer, Rob Meek created the concept and developed the site and application in collaboration with FontShop. We certainly have enhancements planned, and because this is a web app, things can be added on the fly. We’ve received some excellent suggestions from users and encourage more feedback.

> Can you tell us whose idea this was, and how long the site has been in develoment?

FontStruct is Rob Meek’s idea and we’ve been working together on it for several months.

> If a big corporation wants to license a more professional version of a Fontstruct font, and they contact FontShop, what does FontShop do?

We would naturally comply by the Creative Commons license applied to that particular FontStruction.

> For purposes of copyright (or not), does the font creation happen in the country of creation, or is the country of creation the place where FontShop’s servers reside?

Without being a lawyer, I can’t give a categorical answer, but it seems to us that the font creation happens in the country where the creator (FontStruct user) is located.

I hope that clarifies things. It’s probably helpful to know that the idea behind FontStruct is to cultivate a font-building community where modular fonts are created, shared, and discussed freely. There is absolutely no intent to exploit designers or their work. The Creative Commons licensing options and the privacy options are included to give designers complete control over their creations and what they do with them. This is the same model used by other creative sharing sites like Flickr.

FontShop’s commercial interest in the project is in reinforcing our brand’s commitment to creativity and directing people to quality typefaces that can’t be made with a modular tool.

“I’m not sure what you

cerulean — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:51:52 -0700

“I’m not sure what you mean here. Could you clarify?”

Well, it’s obviously targeted at font users rather than font designers. It’s like, “Looking for a font? Great! If you want a pixel font, play with this toy, because anyone can design a pixel font. Or use one that someone else made; they’re all free. And if you want a real font, buy it from us.”

When I download my font (not having shared it), it comes in a zip with a read-me file all about FontStruct and FontShop that ends:
“LEGAL NOTICE:
In using this font you must comply with the licensing terms described in the
file “license.txt” included with this archive.
If you redistribute the font file in this archive, it must be accompanied by
all the other files from this archive, including this one.”
Maybe I’m overcautious, but I feel like it would be foolish upon reading this to assume “you” doesn’t mean me.

Damn good questions, bj.

Ricardo Cordoba — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:10:58 -0700

Damn good questions, bj. I’ve been a-wonderin’ about some of those meself.

> Your work is your own and

beejay — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:56:13 -0700

> Your work is your own and FontShop claims no rights to it beyond what you allow with your Creative Commons license

I’ve been curious about Fontstruct, but haven’t had a chance to set up an account and noodle with it. (I’m never good at early adopting.)

couple of questions, Stephen, if you don’t mind.

• Does FontShop allow the creators to:
• distribute their work elsewhere?
• sell their work via a competitor?
• strip out any FontShop ID in the font data?

• Does FontShop plan to refine any of these fonts and sell them, with royalties to the creators? (What exactly are the plans with this?)

• Can you tell us who built the actual app? And are there any future expansion plans (kerning, for example)?

• Can you tell us whose idea this was, and how long the site has been in develoment?

• If a big corporation wants to license a more professional version of a Fontstruct font, and they contact FontShop, what does FontShop do?

• For purposes of copyright (or not), does the font creation happen in the country of creation, or is the country of creation the place where FontShop’s servers reside?

just a wonderin’.

thanks in advance.

Paul and Aluminum got it

Stephen Coles — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:09:18 -0700

Paul and Aluminum got it right. Your work is your own and FontShop claims no rights to it beyond what you allow with your Creative Commons license.

> They’ve effectively decided for the whole world that any creativity that goes into a bitmap or modular font is valueless.

I’m not sure what you mean here. Could you clarify?

> strip out all the info that says my font was made by FontShop.

The only reference to FontShop in the font data is:

Description: This font was created using FontStruct (http://fontstruct.fontshop.com)
Designer: [Your Name Here]
Manufacturer: http://fontstruct.fontshop.com
Trademark: FontStruct is a trademark of FSI FontShop International GmbH

Saying you ’can choose’

aluminum — Wed, 9 Apr 2008 10:34:33 -0700

Saying you ’can choose’ from a CC license doesn’t seem to imply you must. Even if you must, CC licenses are non-exclusive, meaning you can apply additional licenses as you see fit (including commercial licenses involving sales).

Kevin, I’m not sure where

paul d hunt — Wed, 9 Apr 2008 10:21:15 -0700

Kevin, I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from. If you could point me in the proper direction...

From the FontStruct website:

When you, as a designer, share your FontStructions you can choose from a number of different Creative Commons licenses.

These licenses are displayed on the web page of each FontStruction, they are embedded in the digital font files, and they are included as a text file as part of each download.

To learn more about what Creative Commons is, and what it offers you, please visit the Creative Commons website.

As stated, these licenses apply only if you share your FontStructions. You can, of course, keep them private so only you can download them. presumably, if you do this, none of the licenses apply. I tried this last night and the font file I downloaded cited me (as my username) as the copyright holder.

Of course it would be excellent to hear from the FontShop folks for further clarification tho...

I’ve played around with it

cerulean — Wed, 9 Apr 2008 10:06:37 -0700

I’ve played around with it now, and it’s nice. But I think my concerns are still valid. If I put a lot of work into something really useful, it doesn’t look like I’d be allowed to try to sell it, or even to distribute it free myself without advertising FontShop. They’ve effectively decided for the whole world that any creativity that goes into a bitmap or modular font is valueless. Is that their call to make?

Sure, I could load my “FontStruction” into Typetool to add some much-needed kerning pairs and strip out all the info that says my font was made by FontShop. But I get the impression that this is a civil infraction. And if I don’t do this and instead rebuild the font the hard way, the very fact that I now have a FontStruct account means I can’t prove I didn’t.

Fontstruct

concrete — Mon, 7 Apr 2008 16:01:52 -0700

Hi all came across this today
http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/