Re: the alternative?

On Aug 26,  7:12pm, Clive Bruton wrote:

> [I wrote]
> >Kodak, and CocaCola respectively.
>
> So the world's large corporations are going to take on the role of
> looking after  the world's type designers, I think not.

Read what I wrote before replying.

> >Having the viewer pay is one model. Having the corporation who are trying to
> >promote a corporate identity pay is another, complementary model. This is
> >easier, since they are accustomed to paying for this anyway in their print
> >publications.
>
> Very rarely do they actually pay for new type design, why should they start
> doing that now?

If you are alledging that major corporations never or rarely purchase their
fonts, I hope you have some documentary proof. How then do the font foundries
stay in business?


> >Once HTML pages can contain references to fonts, large websites will be
hiring
> >type designers just like they hire graphic designers now, to give their
siteas
> >a particular look that stands out from the crowd.
>
> Like large websites hire graphic designers now? Joke right?

Sure they hire designers now. If you are unaware of this, I can only conclude
that you have incredibly limited experience of corporate website development.
Actually, the money that some companies are willing to sink into graphics
design for websites sometimes amazes me. [Until I see what they sink into print
and TV advertising, when I realise this is small potatoes indeed].

> I think someone who should know has already discounted this theory,
> Bill Hill of
> Microsoft recently said here that he thought it unlikely that this
> kind of model
> could sustain the range and diversity of type design today.

He was talking about a different type of model. Read what _he_ wrote! He was
talking about a mmodel where a site commissions a font which is then given
away, in fully installable form, for anyone to use on any website or in any
software product or ... this is somewhat different from a corporation using
their corporate image fonts on their own website, such that they are only
usable on that website.

> Why should we doubt the words of someone that has actually been through that
> process and come out the other side?

I have no reason to doubt his words, nor do I. Then again, I have read them ;-)


-- 
Chris Lilley, W3C                          [ http://www.w3.org/ ]
Graphics and Fonts Guy            The World Wide Web Consortium
http://www.w3.org/people/chris/              INRIA,  Projet W3C
chris@w3.org                       2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
+33 93 65 79 87            06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Monday, 26 August 1996 15:24:03 UTC