Re: The unmentionable

Thomas Lord wrote:

> I think that a web font standard will greatly
> expand the non-design-professional, "consumer"
> use of fonts.   Fonts look a little bit like
> music today, I think they will look a lot more
> like music "tomorrow".

I'm interested in viable business models for creating new typefaces. 
 From the comments you've made about the predominance of free fonts 
among most users, I think we agree that this greatly expanded *use* of 
fonts will not translate into a greatly expanded market for commercially 
licensed fonts, i.e. people actually willing to pay for fonts. That 
market will remain principally a professional design market.

> I think you stand to be surprised how a web font
> standard will change your industry.  I think that based
> on empirical observations such as the one I described
> about my experience at CMU.

That wasn't empirical, it was anecdotal, and the key phrase in the fable 
was that the quality was low. I couldn't care less about people making 
low quality fonts and trading them. I care about the people who design 
high quality typefaces being able to make a living from doing so.

> That
> is the brick wall you are running into, not a wall
> of disrespect.

In discussions with John Daggett and Håkon Lie and numerous others on 
this list, I don't feel at all that I am running into a brick wall. I 
have pretty much exhausted my patience for banging my head against Tom 
Lord, though, particularly since I still don't know what stake you have 
in any of this. I think I am going to ignore your messages for a while. 
Actually, I think I might just ignore messages with this subject line, 
and hope that someone starts talking technical details again soon.

JH

Received on Thursday, 30 July 2009 00:40:04 UTC