Article 234949 of alt.binaries.fonts:
From: "Apostrophe \('\)"
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 16:24:04 GMT
Most type designers who think along the lines of "knockoffs are making me bankrupt" either have not seen the winds of the industry or have by now already stopped designing and are now trying to be business folks in an area or another of mutated design industry. Matthew Carter was supervising all the Bitstream knockoff work when it was happening, and he made sure that the knockoffs were much better than the originals. We can't just shoot down knockoffs just because they are knockoffs. I personally think that SWFTE did indeed improve on Barnbrook's work with their Avalon Quest family, though it was indeed little work to produce it. Besides, where do you draw the line on knockoffs? And for our arcvhiving purposes, who's to say that a knockoff didn't turn out better than the original? If we were to ignore multiple instances by different people of the same design, we would have never taken any URW or Bitstream or Castcraft fonts seriously, or even most of the Adobe library, and we wouldn't now be taking the work of current designers seriously (PsyOps Tarocco was originally Berndal's Nordic, as an example; does that warrant us to claim that Berndal's work will not sell anymore [how much has it sold in the first place?]). Even on moral grounds you cannot put down knockoffs. Are we snobs enough to not notice that, for example, John Hudson's Manticore is essentially a technically-corrected Monotype Garamond, or that Licko's Solex is essentially a bad rendition of Topic, or that Jeremy Tankard's Bliss is an improved spin on deGroot's TheSans, or that some Bell Italics are a takeoff on Doves, or that Stone's Scripps College is actually little more than Beatty's version of Goudy Claremont? What about Porchez and his vast improvement on Times and Courier?
There are bad knockoffs and there are GREAT knockoffs. And nobody's going to the extent of Paul King here. Extended complaining about knockoffs is the path that people who place money in front of artistic value, which is fine to a certain extent, but can we really say that Gary Munch's Munchies font is not a knockoff of Milton Glaser type, or that Slimbach's Poetica is not built on Zapf Chancery? Let's redefine our definition of a knockoff here to include "revivals" here. Willson's Broadsheet is by no means original, yet it's getting rave reviews in an industry that supposedly wants to copyright letter shape outlines. Can't we detect some self-defeating currents here?
' -- Mr. Klean. L'ab: http://members.home.com/apostrophe For'um: http://pub11.ezboard.com/fthelab21960thelab L'ist: http://labcat.listbot.com/
Article 234967 of alt.binaries.fonts:
From: "Apostrophe \('\)"
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 20:05:02 GMT
I disagree with what you call "good revival designs". Bo Berndal's Nordic is a recent issue and "reviving" it doesn't make sense. In this case, in spite of the Tarocco documentation that says "I changed it enough to claim it as my own", Hattenbach is not reviving as much as honourably copying. Also, the italic weight of Stone's Scripps College carries the same nodes as the Goudy Claremont italic that Beatty designed? This is pretty much like calling Book Antiqua and Arial "revivals".
About Solex, I guess you haven't looked at it closely. What's the letter most commonly used in latin lingos? The lowercase e, of course. Have you looked at the spacing of the "e" on Solex, for example? I haven't seen a worse mistake made in an Emigre font since the days of Tarzana and Filosofia. And as far as it being far different from Topic, I suggest you get your hands on a copy of Emigre 54 and read the splash on Solex there. I called a bad rendition of Topic simply because the credit was given to Topic as its inspiration, pretty much in the same terms that FB Tasse was claimed to be a revival of Bauer Topic. Have you compared Tasse and Solex? If you have, which one in your opinion is more of a mangling of the muse?
> I guess this is the big question: what *is* the difference between a > "revival" and a "knockoff"? Better yet, what's the definition of a "good > knockoff"?
Though it may be a bit retentive, I have no idea why anyone would label the remake of a recently released font a "revival". Nordic is recent, isn't it? Tarocco is its "revival". Beatty's Claremont is less than 5 years old. Scripps College is a "revival". Literally speaking, to revive is to raise the dead or deathly ill. In technical type terms, to revive is to issue a technologically usable version of letter forms that cannot be used in today's applications of technology. I guess Hattenbach and Stone don't care much about the statement they're making about Nordic and Claremont then?
And come on, Steve, you know as well as I do that in some instances URW Futura is a much better choice for a layout artist than the limited Linotype set. URW Futura is a GOOD knockoff, so is Bitstream Futura. Probably the best example out there of a good knockoff is almost everything in the Elsner & Flake library. For example, compare their Swift to the original Lino one, and find out for yourself which version is leaner and crisper.
> You're right, it shouldn't be about the money. It should be about artistic > value. Sticking with this ideal, suppose your design, Celexa, was > reconstituted and offered for free on another website under the new title: > "Diamonds-in-the-Rough" with no attribution to the original designer? Would > you feel slighted? I would.
Of course I would be slighted, but I'm not one to dwell on it. Being slighted is one thing, and deafening people with cries of "knockoffs are killing my living" is just plain useless and pathetic. As you well know, I've already been knocked off on more than one occasion, but I guess it's what you expect from the fonts that really determines the degree of hurt and subsequent (ir)rational behaviour that follows. I made my fonts available for free, mainly because I do acknowledge the fact that in all my attempts at originality, there will still be elements of other people's work in mine. Slighted, sure, but try to control something that I've already put behind me, why would I want to do something like that? Some people DO acknowledge that their work is based on someone else's, even acknowledge that it's an "honourable knockoff", yet they try their hardest to make sure that their fonts don't circulate without them being paid for the near-theft that they committed by many a standard.
> Another question: when is it ok to copy someone's work? How far can you go? > Is it ok if it's not for sale or because you feel your version is better?
Well, I have a better question for you: who has the right to answer the questions you pose in a definitive manner, and by whose standards? When is it okay to copy someone's work? I don't know. Was it okay for Adobe to copy Garamond? Was it okay for Berthold to copy Futura? Was it okay for URW to copy Helvetica? And who's to say whose version is better?
> All that said, I am actually in favor of free/clone name lists. If only as a > reference so that those who have the fake stuff (by this I mean the poor > .ttf knockoffs with bad spacing and no kerning tables) can discover the true > name and designer of the original work.
Hmmm, not sure about that. If this is about credit to the original designer, there's still stuff out there there that doesn't fall under your category of "fake stuff". For example, I don't see Hattenbach mentioning Egyptienne as a background for his Oxtail family, and I don't see Adobe mentioning Neuland as a background for their latest Moonglow family. If you're basing a principle of moral term on whether or not a copy is in true type or contains kerning pairs, then I'm afraid you're way off the mark here. Personally, I believe that intent is the determining factor for any moral principle or judgment about copying.
' -- Klik & Drag. L'ab: http://members.home.com/apostrophe For'um: http://pub11.ezboard.com/fthelab21960thelab L'ist: http://labcat.listbot.com/