LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Education as such should not be blamed if some tutors apply a sort of one-sided conditioning or perhaps even try to indoctrinate students. Of course, it is flattering for an educator if students embrace his/her ideas, but the primary task of education is to provide a solid foundation for further development and for enhanced reflection. For type design this means that education should result in technical skills combined with knowledge of the historical developments in the profession (including the changing esthetic preferences during the different style periods) together with insight in (the influence of) technology.

By marking the historical and technological boundaries of the type designer’s profession and by stimulating a critical and analytical way of thinking, students should be able to find their own place in the profession and to develop their unique personal ‘hand’. Although craftsmanship formed and still forms the basis for the type designers’ metier and conventions define its boundaries, educators should always be careful that their training does not suppress the natural desire of designers to trespass IMHO.

Hi Dave,


At the risk of being off-topic too, I am just wondering what the intent of your message is. Do you mean that customers should realize that there are free alternatives and that basically all fonts are interchangeable anyway? This will make Libre fonts forceful weapons in the hands of potential customers for negotiations, I reckon. If that is what you mean, then I think that you should rephrase ‘Libre/open fonts are about freedom, not price’* into something like  ‘Libre/open fonts are about restricting the freedom of non-Libre designers because of their price’.

* https://fontlibrary.org/fr/guidebook/libre_open_fonts

Sneak Preview! This photo of a happy type designer in front of his premises comes from the new book How Free Fonts Enrich the World. The book is typeset in a free font and the author, the photographer, the graphic designer, and the printer all worked for free, and the paper was free too! How Free Fonts Enrich the World will become available for free at your favorite bookshop just before Christmas.

I don't think we need be tolerant of someone telling people with less privilege that they're being too sensitive.

In a world which is becoming increasingly intolerant and unstable due to groups of people who want to decide for all of us what is allowed or not, above all we should cherish the privilege of freedom of speech.