Re: Rumours of the death of "new, professionally designed typefaces" are perhaps exaggerated?

2009/8/3 Ben Weiner <ben@readingtype.org.uk>:
> Hi,
>
> Thomas Phinney wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 10:27 PM, Thomas
>> Phinney<tphinney@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>>  I left out the corollary: if they are correct in their assessment,
>> then the creation of new, professionally designed typefaces could dry
>> up a few years after this transition to raw TTF/OTF on web sites
>
> Although some font software vendors, aka foundries, are already
> * licensing existing TTF/OTF fonts for use on the web, and/or
> * making systems that allow this to be done with minimal risk of loss of
> income and maximal opportunity to make money.
>
> So surely they intend to protect their revenue stream, keep on creating new,
> professionally designed typefaces, and move with the times?
>
> I hope that implies that I feel it's a bad thing to remove OTF/TTF support
> in a new spec, whatever might come along to open up the field. Having
> OTF/TTF is such an obviously straightforward and useful facility. For those
> of us involved in creating and using openly licensed fonts it's a
> no-brainer.

Right - I think normal fonts ought to be put on the same level playing
field as enhanced web fonts because the free software movement doesn't
seek to restrict format choices for users and pretend there is some
magical divide between the web and the desktop.

Received on Monday, 3 August 2009 14:54:01 UTC