[Openfontlibrary] Transmogrifying Free Fonts into CA$H

[Dave Crossland]

On 31/10/06, rob at robmyers.org <rob at robmyers.org> wrote:
> 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)

Rob, this is AWESOME :-)

Shame its not cross polinatable with wikipedia projects... ;-)

I'll be sure to let you know next time I'm passing through Reading;
hope you'll give me a shout if you're in Bournemouth/Southampton any
time :-)

> Looking at your list, the font merchandising idea isn't as silly as it might
> sound.

lol

Designers covet merchandise thats dipped in design love.

IMO there is no technical reason for the Graphic Design industry to
stick with Apple kit any more, because they run the Adobe OS. This
works faster on Windows and the hardware is cheaper. Today CS3 is
being delayed for Vista first and Mactel hardware second. In the last
10 years, since Adobe OS was viable on Windows, the industry has
wasted millions of shareholders' money on shiny Apple kit, simply
because Apple has (better) designers than Microsoft, and designers
like design. Surprise! ;-)

> Ryan Hughes, Emigre and others do font merchandise and I still have an
> old copy of Fuse somewhere with posters for the included fonts.

:-)

> 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.

Yeah, and given you only need a dozen or so really top quality fonts
to be a world class designer (another controversial presentation at
ATypI this year in fact ;-) this is not too far out.

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

The effect of computers on design has not been to change design very
much. Yes, digital airbrushing means the women in advertising are
hotter, but if you look at the general output of the 70s and today,
its not massively different, compared to say the 20s and today.

The effect of computers on design has been to make non designers do
design. When PageMaker was released in 1985, completing the missing UI
link between the Apple Macintosh, Apple's rebadged Canon Laserwriter,
and Adobe PostScript, there was a big song and dance in the design
industry about the "WYSIWYG menace", of typographers whining about the
local church making flyers with all 35 PostScript base fonts at once
(and no longer hiring typographers to do it for them). This died down
pretty quickly as everyone got with the programme, and then in the
late 90s DTP applications were quietly replaced by word processors as
the non designer weapon of choice.

Go into *any* business and you will see the effect of this: Posters on
the walls saying "No Deliveries To Be Left Here" "Door Opens Outwards"
"Toilets This Way" "We cannot take Credit Card payment" or whatever,
in 24pt, italic, underlined, ALL CAPS, Times New Roman. Usually they
will be right next to printed matter from central management in the
corporate identity.

Training, installation, maintenance and support for those
non-designers is an untapped business opportunity, which is never
going to be met by $1,000 per seat proprietary design software, or its
surrounding business ecosystem.

-- 
Regards,
Dave