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[Schrijver]

Ha Erik!

Good to see you, &good to hear you: you know more about your job than  
I do :-)

To clear that up, I wasn’t saying type designers are unreasonable,
Rather that the debate as you would find it on the internet might not  
necesarilly reflect the actual outlook of active designers;
Who are probably more busy designing than discussing.

&That there is no one industry anymore, I also said this to imply any  
us–them mentality can’t hold: IMHO we are all in the same ship, that  
of cultural producers in an age when culture is becoming increasingly  
electronic and digital. And as of yet none of us has established a  
firm business model for making profit in the online world…

But I was suggesting, there are presumably lots of people anxious to  
find out such a business model, not only with type, but with digital  
culture in general, because the first one who manages to do so will  
score big, no? And with the economy shifting etc., more and more  
people are looking to find new inroads to capital?

But yeah, you are right, as long as I can’t just say:
‘Well, this would be business model to be employed’
All this is still
Step 3 profit

Eric

PS I do pay for this though http://safaribooksonline.com/Corporate/Index/ 
  , so they managed to actually come up with a business model for e- 
culture in so far as: their supply meets my demand, I pay for it.


Op 14 apr 2009, om 13:53 heeft Erik van Blokland het volgende  
geschreven:

> Eric,
>
> On 14 apr 2009, at 11:39, Schrijver wrote:
>
>> There is no such thing as the ‘type industry’ anymore,
>> Because there is no infrastructure of technology and capital you  
>> have to adhere to in order to be considered a type designer
>
> I'm not sure that covers the current situation completely. As far as  
> the investment in technology is concerned you're right. Investment  
> covers more than capital and software though. To be any good at type  
> design you're still required to spend a decent amount of time  
> acquiring the appropriate skills. While these skills have become  
> more accessible over the last 30 years, I don't think the time  
> required to learn has changed much since.
> Neither has the time required to make a good typeface decreased  
> much. The quick and dirty stuff has gotten a lot easier of course,  
> given the contributions to the oflb and the selection of free fonts.  
> But that's not what is needed, is it.
>
>> I am sure that there are major type developers just waiting for the  
>> right moment to abandon traditional licensing;
>> because they see the value of their product is not in it’s  
>> licensing, but in its typographic quality and fitness for the  
>> current situation (which is IMHO on the screen).
>
> None of the type developers / designers I know.
>
>> And I’m sure there will actually be people who are able to think up  
>> ways so that they actually make *more* money with more liberal  
>> licensing than with traditional licensing.
>
> Isnt't that a bit like http://www.step3profit.com ?
>
> The problem lies not with unreasonable typedesigners, but with the  
> expectation that economic models just pop into existence to fill the  
> space between supply and demand.
>
> So far, patron / donation / charity based models are the only ones  
> on offer. I'm familiar with the cost of designing and developing  
> typefaces. A paypal donation button on a designer site just isn't  
> going to cover it.
>
> Perhaps the OFLB should consider to become more proactive as a  
> fundraiser: set up a trust, collect donations from various sources.  
> Then fund specific, targeted projects. This could be financing new  
> designs, extending or improving existing designs, competitions.
> But I'm sure there are a lot of mouths to feed with whatever money  
> gets FOSS gets as a whole.
>
> Cheers,
> Erik-returning-to-proprietary-typedesign-reviews

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