May 8th, 2013 § Comments Off § permalink
Yesterday, Adobe declared that Creative Cloud is its future. Designers will no longer license desktop copies of Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign and use them “forever” (though that word is obviously limited by each version’s practical lifespan). Instead, they subscribe to a Creative Cloud membership and get access to the apps through an online account.
Along with this announcement came the news that Typekit will be included in the Creative Cloud product. This move was widely expected — once Adobe acquired Typekit in 2011 we all knew that they would use the fonts to add value to their core software, but just how they were going to do that was less clear. Now we know: desktop font syncing. Come mid-June, paid subscribers of Creative Cloud ($50/mo.) or Typekit Portfolio ($50/yr.), Performance, and Business plans will get access to some Typekit fonts directly in their desktop OS. This includes all desktop apps, not just those from Adobe.
Adobe’s announcement comes on the heels of Monotype’s SkyFonts product which offers time-limited desktop access to any of Fonts.com’s webfonts for free. Those who pay for the Professional ($40/mo.) or Master subscriptions get 30-day access to all the fonts from Monotype’s internal libraries, which include Monotype, Linotype, ITC, Bitstream, and Ascender.
For many font users, these services are a godsend. Creating websites without desktop access to webfonts is a major hurdle for designers who rely on apps like Photoshop for comping. Some providers offer workarounds: OurType fonts are licensed once and can be used in print or on the web; FontFont bundles their downloadable webfonts with free (but limited) desktop versions. But Creative Cloud and Skyfonts gives users access to an entire library of fonts, not the individual fonts of traditional sales.
For font makers, these developments raise all sorts of questions. Equating the music and font industries is rife with pitfalls, but the parallels here are too conspicuous to ignore. A few years ago, people bought albums — now they stream songs from a music service. If the font market is headed down the same path, I wonder:
Will easy access to desktop fonts increase piracy?
My hunch: no. While Creative Cloud and Skyfonts obfuscate the temporarily installed fonts in some way, there is always the concern that users will find a way to hack the system or otherwise use the fonts outside the license. I feel the same way about this as I do the silly old debate about PDF embedding permissions: never punish your customers in the attempt to prevent piracy. Fighting font theft is a losing battle. Those who steal fonts will always find easier ways to steal them. Those who focus on making their fonts easy to license and use earn the good will of the market.
Will library subscriptions lessen the perceived value of type?
My hunch: yes. The recent rise of steep discounts and Google freebies has already reduced the value of fonts in most users’ eyes. Cheap access to a vast library of more professional fonts will only add fuel to that fire. Granted, the ease of use and bundling with the Adobe ecosystem will bring new users to the foundries who participate, and Typekit says that providers will be compensated whenever their fonts are used, but it’s unclear whether these things will compensate for sales lost through traditional licensing models. Mark Simonson, for one, is not worried: he says that Typekit has been good for sales via other channels. But I suspect his experience is an outlier, as his Proxima Nova is probably the most popular family in Typekit’s library, raising awareness of the typeface throughout the market. What I hear from other participating type designers is that Typekit revenue represents(ed) a very small fraction of their sales. Beyond hard numbers, I think the more important casualty is that squishy concept of type’s overall worth. As Frode Bo Helland says: “If ‘everything’ is available to ‘everyone’ for a small monthly sum, what does that do to the perceived value of a typeface?” The answer to that question may depend on the definition of “everything”. Right now, there are thousands of professional typefaces that aren’t yet available from these services. Which leads me to my final question.
Will other professional foundries join these libraries?
My hunch: mostly no. Typekit has announced that “7 top-tier foundries” are participating in the initial Creative Cloud offering, and Monotype offers their substantial collection via SkyFonts. The size of these libraries is nothing to scoff at, but it doesn’t represent heavy-hitters like Hoefler & Frere-Jones, Font Bureau, House Industries, Commercial Type, Typotheque, Emigre, and most of FontFont — not to mention a vast and growing crop of small indie foundries that increasingly defines original type design. Given what I mentioned above, I don’t think we’ll see these top-tier foundries join either venture, and if they do it will only be to tease with a few typefaces, as FontFont does with Typekit. If they don’t, the contrast between the major and indie labels will be even more stark than it is today.
What are your hunches? Are we entering a new era of font selling? Are subscriptions a thing to celebrate or lament?
March 13th, 2013 § Comments Off § permalink
I’ll be honest. When December rolls around and I ask a group of smart, articulate font users and makers to each select their favorite release of the year, not everyone rushes back with their pick. And when they do, they don’t always have much to say about it. Some years are stronger than others. 2012 was a strong year. The rich diversity in new type design has never been so evident.
I got so many responses this time around, many with texts that were longer and more in-depth than ever before, that I admittedly fell behind in the editing and production of the list. I hope you’ll find it to be worth the wait.
If you need an entry point, might I suggest:
Matthew Butterick’s review of Eskapade, in which he explains the difference between originality and surprise;
Sébastien Morlighem on the unusual stencil family that is Bery;
Indra Kupferschmid on Stan, with history on the unusual designs that inspired it;
Eben Sorkin on Turnip, Typographica’s new text face;
Catherine Griffiths, our newest contributor, on FF ThreeSix;
Florian Hardwig, who offers not only praise, but a bit of critique for Axia;
Shoko Mugikura and Tim Ahrens on the complex beauty of Quintet;
or Patric King’s “cocaine-and-vodka” take on Xtreem, dripping with references to ’80s pop culture.
Brief Thoughts on the State of Type
For the font market, 2012 was a year in which burgeoning trends matured into permanent shifts.
The most obvious example of lasting change is in type for the web. Professional webfonts were available in 2011 — primarily via services hosting previously released font families — but buyers can now expect most new fonts to be issued in both desktop and web formats. And some typefaces, like Turnip RE and JAF Bernini Sans, were designed from the start with screen performance in mind. (Unfortunately, mobile publishing is still left behind, as phone and tablet developers struggle to find clear licensing options for embedding fonts in apps. While there are some exceptions, most buyers still need to contact foundries for this kind of license. Look for this to evolve in 2013.)
The independent foundry has also cemented its place as the new foundation of the industry. Most of this year’s selections are from very small shops, several of which are entirely new to the market. It’s also significant that, in addition to offering their fonts through retailers like FontShop, MyFonts, and the newly revived Fonts.com, most of these indie foundries now sell directly to customers through their own sites. In some cases they have eschewed outside distribution altogether. The “majors” have not simply laid down, however. Monotype, Linotype, Font Bureau, FontFont, and H&FJ are all represented in this year’s list, each with releases that are remarkably characteristic of their respective brands.
Stylistically, no single classification or genre dominated the selections this year. This is a good thing. It indicates that me-too-ism is limited and that designers are open to a variety of styles. If you cast your net wide across all areas of graphic design, that trend for diversity is confirmed by today’s practical typography, too. Speaking of Fonts In Use, we are now adding links to that site from Typographica reviews, so you can see how the typefaces perform in the real world.
There are plenty of open questions about how fonts are marketed these days, but I am very optimistic about the proficiency and creativity of type design as a whole. The Golden Age of Type lives on, and it’s growing up.
Thanks to Chris Hamamoto for his continual design and dev prowess. Tânia Raposo also joined the team this year, designing many of the specimen images that represent the selections (now double-density for Retina-level displays). I’m also very grateful to Tamye Riggs for copyediting help, to Laura Serra for production assistance, and all the contributors for their insightful reviews.
The “Type of 2012” title graphic features Stan, Signalist, Trio Grotesk, and Bery Tuscan.
January 25th, 2012 § Comments Off § permalink
After a long hiatus (inexcusably skipping 2009 and ’10) we’re back with our annual review of the year in type.
The idea is simple: I invite a group of writers, educators, type makers and type users to look back at 2011 and pick the release that excited them most. The reviews range from the academic (like Paul van der Laan on Zizou or Jens Kutilek on FB Alix) to the theoretical (such as Jan Middendorp on Agile) to the personal (like Carolina de Bartolo who reviewed Calibre and Periódico after firsthand experience with a redesign of WIRED magazine) to the playfully unexpected (Microsoft’s Si Daniels praises Apple Color Emoji) to the exclamatory (Matthew Butterick on Neue Haas Grotesk).
This is not a juried contest. The result isn’t necessarily the “best fonts of the year”, or even those most used or ballyhooed. But these 50 selections do capture a pretty accurate snapshot of where type design is now, and where it’s headed.
If 50 seems like a lot, consider the thousands of new releases that didn’t make the list. The general public’s interest in typography continues to grow, and with that comes hundreds of new designers who are dabbling in or starting new careers in type making. Our list of honorable mentions represents only a small slice of the new fonts published in 2011.
As always, the other clear trend is new technology. By the end of 2008, we could finally declare OpenType the default font format. Three years later, in the wake of the @font-face declaration, there are new formats and new substrates as destinations for type design. Yet, in contrast to OpenType’s glacial adoption rate, webfonts are poised to take hold quickly, sparked by intelligent delivery platforms (pioneered by Typekit in 2009), early adoption by major foundries (led by FontFont), and screen-specific font design (like Font Bureau’s RE series).
The unexpected benefit of the new webfont era for an effort like this one on Typographica – it becomes easier to judge a typeface more fairly. Despite type’s long history in print, a font made today will likely be seen on screen far more often than on paper. I’ve always lamented that critics and users usually judge typefaces only on screen, not in their “proper” medium. But in an age in which we read more on screen than in print, maybe this isn’t a universal problem anymore. Of course, now font makers need to rethink the way type is made and rendered, but we’re already seeing progress there.
This year’s list wouldn’t be possible without Chris Hamamoto’s enduring design, Billy Whited’s proficient coding, Laura Serra’s image wrangling, able proofing by Matthew Coles, and, of course, all the contributors. We’re also grateful to FontFont for the newly updated FF Quadraat and Process for Anchor, typefaces that make writing and reading on the web a pleasure. Thank you!
The “Typefaces of 2011” image uses Salvo and Acta.
December 30th, 2011 § Comments Off § permalink
Most fonts are licensed when needed, selected specifically for the job at hand. But when my (less font-addicted) friends are seeking versatile, workhorse typefaces for future use, I send them this list.
Of course, there are dozens of reputable outfits that make and sell good fonts. It’s almost irresistible to list every little foundry I love, but most of them are available via one of these outlets and a set of links longer than the one above is often more overwhelming than useful. Think of this list as a shopper’s starting point for building a lasting typographic toolset. These sites offer most of the best fonts available, and — crucially — present them well, too.
The focus here is on downloadable desktop fonts for print use, but some of these shops offer webfont versions as well. For now, my webfont-specific shortlist is simply: Typekit, Webtype, Fontdeck.
Speaking of typeface recommendations, our very own Typographica.org reviews are also a good introduction to a few of the best new typefaces. After an unforgivable two-year hiatus, we’re wrapping up the 2011 edition now.
October 19th, 2011 § Comments Off § permalink
Just in time for Halloween, from the depths of the Android 4.0 laboratory emerges a frightening cross-breed creature called Roboto.
It was built from scratch and made specifically for high density displays. Google describes it has having a “dual nature. It has a mechanical skeleton and the forms are largely geometric. At the same time the font’s sweeping semi-circular curves give it a cheerful demeanor.” — GottaBeMobile
This is pure PR BS. I know it when I see it because I’ve had to write a few glowing descriptions about typefaces that don’t really glow.
Click to embiggen image.
I’m all for the strategy of developing a unique identity typeface, and I commend Google for employing type designers in house, but this is an unwieldy mishmash. Roboto indeed has a mixed heritage, but that mix doesn’t have anything to do with the gibberish from the press release. Its parents are a Grotesk sans (like a slightly condensed Helvetica) and a Humanist sans (like Frutiger or Myriad). There’s nothing wrong with combining elements of these two styles to create something new. The crime is in the way they were combined: grabbing ideas from the Grotesk model, along with a Univers-inspired ‘a’ and ‘G’, welding them to letters from the Humanist model, and then bolting on three straight-sided caps à la DIN.
When an alphabet has such unrelated glyphs it can taste completely different depending on the word. “Fudge” is casual and contemporary. “Marshmallow” is rigid and classical. This is not a typeface. It’s a tossed salad. Or a four-headed Frankenstein. You never know which personality you’ll get.
For now, I can only speculate on how this beast came to be. The font files credit the design to Christian Robertson, whom I know to be a very bright professional with some decent work under his belt, including the convincing handwriter Dear Sarah and the adorable Ubuntu Titling font. Either Google tied him down and made unreasonable demands or there’s something nasty in the water down in Mountain View. To be fair, I haven’t seen the fonts on a phone, in person, and Google promises that they are built specifically for that medium. But I can’t imagine that would erase the inherent problem with the design. There are some good shapes in Roboto, they just belong in multiple typefaces.
In any event, Roboto probably won’t terrorize mobile screens for very long. Helvetica and Frutiger are immortal. Hodgepodge brutes like these usually have a short lifespan.
Download the Roboto fonts
See Roboto in action
For a multi-class combo done right, see Fakt or Breuer Text.
Update: Robertson has replied with his rationale for the design:
Here’s the thinking with the open terminals on the ‘e’ and ‘g’. It has been the hard and fast rule for sans serif types that the a, c, e, g and s must agree as to their angle of exit. Interestingly, this is not the case for serif types, and certainly isn’t true for any kind of handwriting. It is common for the lower case ‘e’ to be more open than the ‘a’ for example. If there is a single story ‘g’ it will often remain open, or even curve back the other way (up until it forms a two story g).
As I experimented with this thinking I realized a couple of things:
1 / I have always hated the way Helvetica and all of her acolytes close the terminal on the ‘g’. It is just so awkward. You can’t do it with a pen; the terminal always wants to end somewhere other than straight up (note that this is not true of s or a). It’s like a ‘t’ or ‘f’ that hooks all the way around. It’s just gross. It’s even worse with the geometric bowl on top. You get such an awkward double curve. I equally hate any calligraphic ‘g’ that closes with a ball terminal.
2 / I discovered that the type with a closed ‘a’ and ‘s’ and an open ‘e’ and ‘g’ has a really beautiful texture across longer blocks of text. The rhythm has this kind of a swirl that is actually really nice to read. You are correct that Fudge and Marshmallow may initially disrupt some expectations, but over the course of actually using the font, you forget that ‘e’ is decreed to be closed like ‘a’ (it doesn’t want to be anyway and ‘g’ needs a friend). Despite the PR speak, the variation in exit vectors does make for a more cheerful type.
As for the other two monster heads, I’m ignoring the part about the straight sided caps, since I don’t find it a problem that the lower case aren’t equally straight sided. Also, I find your disagreement with the K hardly worthy of justifying another head; possibly a finger or toe.
Note that there are still some bugs in the font that has been extracted from the SDK. Many of these have been corrected already, and you can expect to see some fixes to minor kerning issues and some diacritical misalignments. Also, since Android doesn’t use much of the nastiness that is TrueType hinting, Roboto is not hinted to support older Windows browsers, for example.
Update: Jan. 12, 2012 — Google offers the full 16-font Roboto family and specimen book on their new Android Design site. (Thanks, Reed Reibstein.)
September 29th, 2011 § Comments Off § permalink
A writer from The Atlantic Wire contacted me to get my opinion on the Average Font that’s making the internet rounds. I don’t think there’s anything worth writing about.
It’s the sort of project that most designers have seen many times before they are even out of school. It would be more interesting if there was a theory or direction behind Moritz Resl’s approach, but his short description shows there wasn’t much thought put into it.
“This project shows what a font would look like if it consisted of all typefaces installed on my system. Every character from a to z is drawn using every single font with a low opacity. In total there are over 900 typefaces in my library. I didn’t exclude the ugly ones.”
Exploring the commonalities and differences between typefaces is intriguing (though others have overlaid fonts to make lovely images that work as art better than Resl’s), but without any controls in the experiment, nor any data about the method or what’s included, the only thing we learn from the result is that there is variety in type, enough to make something mostly but not entirely illegible. And we get a pretty video.
Something like Kai Bernau’s Neutral, a well-researched comparison of typefaces in search of the most “neutral” aspects, has much more value. I guess the images wouldn’t the draw the traffic that Average Font draws.
Update: Yet another exploration in typeface merging popped up last week. This time the result, Avería, is a working family of fonts. My reaction is essentially the same as I wrote above. It’s an arguably interesting experiment, but not a very useful one. The designer, Dan Sayers, sums it up himself in the first sentence of his description: “I am not a type designer.” If you need a serif in this vein, there are far more useful typefaces drawn by trained professionals from scratch — Tribute, Fabiol, FF Avance, Garaline, Galena, to name a few. Or, to put it in a more festive way:
“I toast that creation with a glass of my famous 725-wine punch.” — Jonathan Hoefler.
Above: Average Font by Moritz Resl and Face Variations by W. Bradford Paley
March 20th, 2011 § Comments Off § permalink
Last week, I joined Frank Chimero, Tiffany Wardle, and Jason Santa Maria for a panel at the SXSW conference.
Now that web designers suddenly face the challenge (and delight) of choosing fonts from an ever-growing selection, we thought it’s a good time to recommend some basic principles for making wise type choices.
The slides from each of our four quick presentations are below, as well as audio generously provided by SXSW. If you’re short on time and feel like you know the fundamentals, skip ahead to the second half of the session — I think the Q&A is as useful as our prepared stuff.
Of course, an hour is hardly enough time to deliver what one can get from the first day in a good Type 1 course, and as I listen to the audio I cringe at all the crap I missed or said poorly, but I think we did a decent job of introducing some concepts that will launch young designers more confidently into the new typographic web.
If you attended the panel and have any questions that you didn’t get answered or simply need help finding the right font, feel free to contact me here or on Twitter: @typographica or @font_id.
Slides
Audio
Or view the slides at full screen to autoplay the audio.
Resources
Related Links
Recommended Books
Webfont Providers
Typefaces Used and Mentioned
Our Favorite Typefaces of the Moment
November 30th, 2010 § Comments Off § permalink
It feels like this war has been raging for ages, but we’re still in the very early years of type on the web. When we look back on this moment — from the day the first webfont service launched to the imminent standardization of WOFF as a webfont file format — it will be but an em dash in the long history of screen typography.
Like Simon Daniels said so prophetically over a year ago, the war (over formats and security and delivery) is over. It’s time to win the peace. Now we’ve got to build some fonts.
Building the fonts is the part of this story that so few anticipated or dared to face. It’s the hard part. So hard, in fact, that some font manufacturers skipped the process altogether, simply releasing their print-optimized fonts as “webfonts” without the significant changes required to make them read well on screen. To me, this is akin to shipping software that is bug-ridden at best. Still, the tech media touts the “thousands” of new fonts now available for web use. Most of what consumers read is about how many fonts you can get and how they are served, but not so much about how they look and read.
Now that the painful reality of poorly hinted fonts is sinking in, web designers are realizing that there is little value in choice alone. In fact, having the choice between thousands of fonts that work only at certain sizes on certain screens isn’t much of a choice at all.
Things will get better. Display pixel density will improve. Windows users will upgrade, replacing GDI with DirectWrite. But this evolution will be slow, and we can’t do much to speed it up.
What we can do is push the evolution of font makers and services. Next time you’re shopping for type, don’t just look for your favorite face as a webfont. Ask for more:
1. Demand fonts that render well for the bulk of all web users, not just those on Mac OS X or Windows 7, but also the poor saps on Windows XP who still represent more than half of the browsing population. High quality releases like Web FontFonts, Fedra Sans Screen, and FacitWeb demonstrate that this can be done.
2. Demand comprehensive previews that show fonts in multiple sizes in all the most common rendering environments: Core Text (OS X), DirectWrite, GDI ClearType, and GDI Standard. Typekit and MyFonts have made valiant efforts here, but the experiences fall a bit short.
3. Demand transparency from webfont providers about the limits of their products. Fonts should be clearly marked when they don’t perform well at certain sizes or in certain operating systems. Webtype and Typekit lead buyers to fonts that work especially well for text. It’s a good first step. FontsLive offers a “minimium recommended size” which would be laudable if it wasn’t so suspect (you can’t even sample their fonts below 20px).
Choosing typefaces for print is fairly clear: you see what you’ll get. Webfont quality, on the other hand, is hidden behind a veil of browsers, operating systems, and end user settings. Yes, there are good webfonts out there, but finding and testing them is a struggle. Font buyers rely on providers more than ever before. Those who provide quality and transparency will lead this new market and medium.
Update: David Březina points out that IE7 switches ClearType on by default. So while there are many Windows XP users out there, most of them have upgraded to IE7 and aren’t seeing non-ClearType rendering in their browser. In this case, ClearType in Win XP would then be the harshest common render mode to test against.
Update, Oct 19, 2011: Since this article was published MyFonts and Fonts.com Web Fonts have joined Typekit in providing screenshots to reveal how their fonts perform in various browser, OS, and (in the case of Fonts.com) render engine environments. I commend these retailers for their transparency.
September 7th, 2010 § Comments Off § permalink
I have news. September 3 was my last day as Type Director at FontShop. Looking ahead, I see a stack of beautifully blank pages, waiting to be filled. But I can’t move on to the next chapter until I pay homage to this last one.
In early 2004 I was living in Stockholm, one foot in graphic design, the other (and my heart) firmly planted in the world of type. Hours were spent updating Typographica with industry news, typographic sundries, and occasional gripes and whines that, if you’re generous, could be called “critiques”.
Often, those critiques were lofted at FontShop. Erik and Joan Spiekermann’s creation was an institution with an important history, a unique regional franchise concept, and a premium collection of typefaces including their own FontFont library. Yet the brand, a well known and loved leader in Europe, wasn’t nearly as vital in the US.
More visibly, the business was late to the e-commerce party. FontFont.com was sorely in need of an overhaul. FontShop.com, despite an excellent visual refresh by Punchcut, was technically behind the competition. Meanwhile, others were beginning to reap the benefits of blogging and social media. FontShop wasn’t ready.
That was when I got a call from Joan. She invited me to Berlin for a day of brainstorming with Punchcut’s Jared Benson. I gawked at FontShop’s archives, shelves of rare type books and heirlooms of a company whose offices once sat at the foot of the Berlin Wall. We visited Spiekermannpartners where Erik was as charming and brilliant as his talks and interviews. It was there that I first saw a vintage Braun hi-fi and learned about a guy called Dieter Rams. We chatted about typeface specimens and office layouts. I was a kid in a candy store. Cue the Wonka music.
The Berlin trip resulted in a job essentially of my own creation. We tossed ideas on the board and I picked the stuff that suited me. It was my introduction to a hiring philosophy that seems logical but is sadly rare: find people you trust and let them do what they do best.
With the self-appointed title of “Glyph Pusher”, I joined the San Francisco office where I worked with gifted and driven folks to rebuild FontShop.com, revive Font magazine, bring in new foundries, and publish regular newsletters, blogs, and podcasts. I was around for the creation of the last printed FontBook, a pioneering webfont strategy, and FontStruct, the kind of purely creative venture that only a company with FontShop’s culture has the guts and vision to build.
Six years later, FontShop is a global force in design. With a curated type collection and a trusted brand, it’s reasserted itself as the font retailer for creative professionals.
The toughest part of leaving an organization like this one is leaving the people. I’m grateful for the example and support of all FontShop’s brilliant souls, particularly for:
Joan and Erik’s courageous enterprise and their faith in my contribution to it,
Petra Weitz’s kind heart and deft management,
Yves Peters, the original überfontgeek who paved my way,
the classy Jürgen Siebert, my model of marketing,
Jared Benson and Zara Evens’ work that set the tone for our online identity,
Mai-Linh Truong, who generously lent me the keys to FontBook,
Mike Schawel’s drive and motivation,
Jason Chapin’s lifesaving code,
our skillful web developers who coped valiantly with my strange fontish requests while constantly teaching me something new,
Conor Mangat’s design wit and typographic prowess,
Ivo Gabrowitsch’s camaraderie on the other side of the pond,
Ivan Bettger and Theresa dela Cruz’s tireless hours on the thankless job that is customer support,
First Officer Michael Pieracci’s cheery disposition and stellar office orchestration,
and my creative team — Wes Wong, Calliope Gazetas, Chris Hamamoto, and Michelle Nguyen — who all demonstrated a typographic literacy rare among young designers.
I’m proud of our work. Now I’m itching for something new. What’s next is uncertain, but what’s obvious is that Typographica deserves more attention. So, expect that. And something else. I’ll let you know as soon as I know. Rest assured, it will involve type. It’s in my blood.
July 20th, 2009 § Comments Off § permalink
Yesterday at TypeCon2009 in Atlanta, 11 representatives from the type community packed a stage to discuss the controversial and convoluted issue of licensing fonts for the web. I sat at the AV table and recorded the session for TypeCon. The full two hours of audio is now online. SOTA hopes to follow with video later, but I thought the interest was strong enough to warrant posting something audible as soon as we could.
Panelists
- Moderator: Kent Lew type designer, SOTA Board Member
- Ted Harrison, FontLab type design software vendor
- Bill Davis, Ascender (font vendor)
- David DeWitt, Monotype Imaging (font vendor)
- Christopher Slye, Adobe type designer
- Shu Lai, ShuDesign web designer
- Ivo Gabrowitsch, FontFont font vendor
- John Hudson, Tiro Typeworks type designer
- Bryan Mason, Typekit web font service provider
- Garrick Van Buren, Kernest web font service provider
- Frank J. Martinez, Esq. copyright attorney
Maybe we should have cut the 30 seconds of relaxed jazz at the beginning, but I find it an amusing counterpoint to the urgency and heat of the discussion. It beats the more obvious “Ride of the Valkyries”.
You can also have a look at Typographica’s Twitter stream which I filled with a play-by-play and a bit of commentary from the event. Anyone got a script that will take a selection of Tweets and post it reverse order for posterity?
