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Date: 1998-11-03 15:45:17
From "The font creators forum "
Subject: The type.design list has started !

Great !

I see now a dozen of names in the subscriber's list. This means that, 
after all, the idea may not have been that bad. Thank-you so much for 
joining.

Someone suggested to me that the Internet may be too small to 
accommodate yet another typography list. I cannot help, but to react 
in amazement to such absurdities. Just like because there is already a 
few typography web sites, there would be not enough room for more. 
Don't we all know the answer ? 

The Internet is not about enough, or not enough. It is about 
adequation to the communication needs. To the topics being exchanged. 
To the vivacious spirit of self-expression. 

The idea of creating a new type designer list came to me last Friday 
night. Very late. After a rather interesting day spent in the plane 
traveling from LA to WestBorough, a couple of hours lost in the 
traffic trying to find my way in the Boston maze, I finally got to 
Typecon 98. I really did not know what to expect, although I knew at 
least by email a few of the participants. And I had met Hrant Papazian 
in the plane. 

It was really neat to meet in person Chris MacGregor, after having 
read for quite a while his name in different newsgroup. I met him 
actually in the font designer forum of AOL. That was before the 
Internet Type Foundry. 

At the end of the day, most of us where so excited about the event 
that it became very difficult to part. Besides, there was a lot of 
topics to talk about. Besides font business, there was that lingering 
problem of font copyright, and the everlasting impression that the 
legal mountain was too big for anyone to change the politicians mind. 
On an election night, this resonates funny.

Chris told me how difficult the battle will be to get politicians to 
hear us, poor type designers, when already they snubbed such biggies 
as Adobe, Linotype, Bitstream, Agfa and others. Matthew Carter 
confirmed the next day how difficult it had been in the past. Well, 
the discussion lasted late in the night, until some like 3:00 AM. 

Seems to me there is several ways to go, when your rights are not 
recognized. You can sob in your corner, and consider yourself a 
victim, or you can do whatever is possible, as puny as it seems. 
Before being in the type design business, I have been the son, and 
grand son of photographers. What does that have to do with the 
business at hand ? In the late sixties, Photography was considered 
less than an art. Maybe a craft, but barely. Then, with the 
commendable efforts of Linhof, Leica, Nikon and Canon, plus such 
magazines as Photo and others, little by little, things started to 
change. Photographer's names started to be known. Galleries started 
to show _and better yet, to sell_  photographs.  Today, some 
photographers have attained the status of authentic artists, even if 
some arrière-garde conservative would not concede to it. 

Granted, current US law does not recognize copyright for type 
designers. But this does not mean in any way that type designers 
should renounce paternity for their creations. As a matter of fact, it 
becomes all the more important for them to be better known. This can 
be enabled the same way any oppressed group as always had to go : 
organize, and open your mouth. Or, on the Internet, your web site, 
your newsgroup, your LIST !

I have to confess I am a little fatigue to feel constrained between 
two worlds :  in some typography lists, some guardians of tradition 
boo any initiative to change anything that has been done for 1,000 
years. I remember how a French typography list members spent about 100 
messages damning anybody who would use double quotes instead of 
guillemots to set their language. On the other hand, I am growing an 
increasingly painful allergy against the ignorant morons who haunt 
comp.fonts, asking for commercial type like if they where chewing gum 
tablets. Give me some fresh air ! 

The main business at hand for type designers may not be to protect the 
endangered guillemot (as cute as maybe). It may not be either to play 
font cop against kids who, after all, may grow into very decent font 
customers, or even designers. Why not try and think how we can 
organize, the way other art industries have, in the past ? 

We sometimes think that because we have similar fonts, we are 
competitors. It maybe sometimes true, but I believe in many cases, 
customers simply choose our font because they like it. The same way 
people by records from a selection of tens of thousands. And most 
real font buyers do know quite a few font sites. In effect, we have 
more common interest than we may think.

Well. Enough rambling. Let me send this already very long message. 

I am just trying to get this list started. Of course kerning 
nurseries, hint pruning and bitmap ripening are just as interesting ! 
As I am battling sbit to get more than one bitmap in a TTF (and it 
does not work), any help is w

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