[Openfontlibrary] Transmogrifying Free Fonts into CA$H

[rob at robmyers.org]

Quoting Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com>:

> How can a typeface designer and font developer make a living releasing
> fonts under the OFL and publishing free information on typeface
> design?

http://www.robmyers.org/wiki/index.php/How_To_Get_Paid_For_Copyleft_Art 
(work in
progress)

Looking at your list, the font merchandising idea isn't as silly as it might
sound. Ryan Hughes, Emigre and others do font merchandise and I still have an
old copy of Fuse somewhere with posters for the included fonts.

Fonts can be advertising for, a time saving resource for, or the subject of,
paid design work. Producing or customising fonts for institutions or as 
part of
design projects, designing typographic layouts or style guides (for 
publications
offline or online), and producing logotypes are all design work that 
privileges
font design and typographic skills. The freedom of the fonts needn't be an
issue in this work, and could even be an advantage. Clients will love you if
they don't have to worry about font licensors breaking down their door if they
copy fonts to too many machines. I've seen biiiiiig clients with terrible font
hygiene.

So to stretch Free Software revenue models badly, paid design work is
installation, maintenance or support for fonts. ;-)

- Rob.