Modification Briefs - Best practices

KP Mawhood

Pretext:
Firstly, if anyone has any real examples of font modification briefs – that they'd be happy to share (private info censored) – I would really appreciate it. I realize that this might be a big ask. Secondly, if anything here sounds unfair or inconsiderate – please call me out on it. I'm trying to figure out what type of proposals might be fair, or not.

Context:
Many fonts do not have sufficient support for content creation in an academically diverse organization, particularly in terms of diacritics / compound chars. Due to our workflows, that rely on pre-determined text specifications / series designs, choosing a font based on a specific title is rarely an option. The majority of titles use specifications based on an automated system, that does not pass through our design team.

The idea of a plain vanilla one-size-fits-all in Latin script is not appropriate for our organisation's culture at this point. The first step for us is to optimize our microtypography*. To achieve this seamlessly, with minimal disruption to the production schedule, modifications are required. If this is successful, the next step would be a focus on further cost-saving mechanisms…

*Microtypography has to do with the details; setting the right glyph, getting the appropriate kerning and tracking, and making stylistic choices such as when to use small-caps. Micro techniques have received a lot of attention recently, as browser makers adopt new CSS attributes that allow for finer control over Web type. Microtypography deals mainly with legibility and can be thought of as the design of letters and words.

First steps:
I'm starting to think about how we can approach font modifications. So far we've been substituting, or adapting / creating custom glyphs based on FLOSS fonts, single weight. These instances are rarities not regularities. Usage is print only / PDF use, in a publication-type reading environment. Ideally, it would be great to move towards a standardized process, but that's only possible within a specific budget.

1) What information do you detail? How many examples do you prefer to see?
2) Pricing structure, in your view what are fair points for negotiation. For example:
  2.1) Usage limited to a single ISBN / series.
  2.2) Complexity of glyph / char, e.g.

• adding a compound glyph for dotted h <ḥ>;
  
• vs. PUA Chinese Chars;
  
• vs. OT features for variants / shaping rules.

  2.3) License rights for modification of a single glyph / limited unicode range, pending approval IP control. E.g.,

• Latin-based compound diacritics, for which combining forms can be sourced in the font;
• Limited icon range / simple-form icon range.

  2.4) Distribution to our typesetters for use in typesetting. If they are licensed for the font, do you charge twice for the modification for us to supply it to them?
  2.5) Multiple modifications at different points in time – can these be added to one "extended" font version? Is there opportunity for a model with an initial up-front cost, and then a fixed amount for each subsequent modification?
3) Do foundries have preferred freelancers, or is everything achieved in house – for both licenses that permit mods, and those which do not. Equally, if modifications are made to a FLOSS font - is it fair to continue the license as FLOSS?
4) Reasonable schedule / timeframe…?
5) Other considerations?

KP Mawhood

NB: This is not Latin script only, that's just the most common requirement. I'm aware that everyone here has specialisms in different areas, these are all important.

Dave Crossland

if modifications are made to a FLOSS font - is it fair to continue the license as FLOSS?

It is likely required. If you combine parts of an OFL font with parts of another font, the whole of the newly created font must be licensed under OFL if it is distributed to 3rd parties. (If it isn't distributed, this requirement for all incoming parts to be under OFL doesn't apply.)

Malcolm Wooden

Katy, I think you maybe trying to hit a moving target with such questions in this forum.

First, no two client briefs are the same and each designer/foundry here would probably interpret a written brief differently. Generally there are face to face meetings, video calls and emails to ensure the correct interpretation of the clients brief. Briefs can be anything from a few lines in an email to a 200 page project description.

Secondly, every designer/foundry in here has probably got a different workflow discipline and has a slightly different niche in the industry.

I would suggest that you look at some foundries in the UK that could be responsive to your needs and technically competent for your purposes then discus your points directly with them to see if they are interested in working with you to achieve your aims within your budget.

KP Mawhood

@Malcolm Wooden Thank you for the clear response - I really appreciate it. Different workflows and approaches is to be expected - but perhaps I was over-hopeful to see some examples. I'll do some more thinking and explore alternative channels.

@Dave Crossland Thank you, noted.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Forbidding modification is now de rigueur in EULAs because foundries realize they can get away with such an anti-cultural business tactic. "We all stand on the shoulders of giants... to make more money." So gollum.

JoyceKetterer

@Hrant H. Papazian, darling... That really isn't why.  Can we please not insult each other?  You can think we are wrong headed but please do not suggest that we are anti-cultural villains.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

I will concede that in many cases it's an unwitting anti-culturalism. Hence my motivation to convert, via candor.

And I have yet to hear a good justification for why the no-mod clause went from a rarity to standard issue over the span of a few years.

Thierry Blancpain

@Hrant H. Papazian The only thing you achieve with such posts is eye rolls from the people you might have hoped to convert to your viewpoint.

More importantly, as far as I can tell your post and this discussion are taking the thread off-topic and do not answer any of Katy’s questions. So if you’d like to discuss your stance on modification, I’d suggest you do it in another thread.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Why assume everybody is so intransigent? Monokrom's EULA allows modification, and IIRC Frode was involved in discussions on Typophile about this before they launched. As I opined during my TypeCon-2014 talk, there's a lot of fruitful ground between hippie and gollum.

Before I posted I considered whether my point was too far off topic. But I think it's sufficiently related to Katy's conundrum. For one thing, the amount a foundry might charge to carry out a modification is opaque and potentially capricious; you don't know until it's too late. Especially when you consider that nobody actually read the EULA; apparently not even Darden Studio's lawyer reads any besides their own. Joyce valiantly intends to change such attitudes via friendlier EULAs, but I wonder what users would think of foundries with a no-mod clause if they started realizing it's there before it's too late...

Me, I roll my eyes at: «Touche pas à mon Garamond!» To me wrapping outlines around an idea that's never completely yours –and sometimes not remotely yours– isn't enough to warrant such protectionism.

KP Mawhood

Hrant H. Papazian said:

For one thing, the amount a foundry might charge to carry out a modification is opaque…

The message embedded here is important. Issues might crop up on any title with potentially any font, as co-publications and author supplied content draw in unforseen font requirements. If there's a scheduled 48 hours to improve the rendering of a dotted "h", I don't have time to spec, to negotiate prices back and forth for the modification of a single glyph. Manual intervention is a poor solution, as is switching from NFC to NFD - problems w/ kerning (2 different fonts, 1 letter form + 1 combining char), XML capture and font-rendering in online distribution.

With a standardised SLA for a specific issue-type there is more clout, particularly if the budgeted amount is nominal (high frequency is ok, providing it is spread out between different products). Our systems are standardised, more similar to the assembly-line, with creative directors springing out terms such as "well-oiled machine". Poor typographic thrives in these circumstances, because we're so busy following workflows and shuffling paper – of which the EULA I'm sorry to say does play a time-consuming role.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Good insights. I'm glad you seem to think I was [sufficiently] on-topic. Indeed to me it boils down to consideration for others, whether they're in-the-trenches customers, or hypothetical beneficiaries of cultural growth.

John Hudson

I don't have a standard policy on allowing or prohibiting modification. Unlike Hrant, I think either policy can be culturally valid, and where I am wary of allowing modification it is specifically because I am concerned about quality and about shoddy workmanship appearing in something that is, after all, primarily associated with my name and that of my foundry. If someone modifies one of my fonts, and uses it to publish a book, that modification appears in the context of my typeface, and the reader of the book has no way of knowing that I'm not responsible for the poorly positioned diacritic with no kerning that occurs frequently in that particular text. So I am wary of allowing other people to mess with my fonts. But I don't disallow modification outright, because that doesn't make any sense to me: some modification might be low risk, while other modification might be high risk (also, not only in terms of quality, but the likelihood of the modified font escaping into the wild). So I want customers to contact me about modifications, to explain what they want to do and how they propose to do it. This isn't about negotiating a price — there generally isn't one, unless I'm actually asked to do the modification myself —, but about having some measure of oversight and being able to give the customer advice.

When A2-Type's Antwerp typeface was selected for the English texts of the Murty Classical Library of India, it needed to be significantly extended and customised, with many additional diacritics for transliteration of Indic scripts and less swashy forms of a couple of italic uppercase letters. I wrote the spec for the modifications, and Harvard University Press approached A2-Type to obtain permission. I went to meet with the type's designer, Henrik Kubel, when I was in London, and we ended up collaborating on the modifications. Later, when some additional diacritics needed to be added, Henrik said he was happy for me to do that work, since he'd been reassured by the previous process that I wasn't going to mess it up or do a disservice to his typeface.

This is culture. It's not a one-man-job, but it exists in discrete instances of creation and in interaction between creators. Sometimes we interact with the dead, which means interacting through the work — e.g. as Henrik interacted with the makers of 16th Century types in the Plantin-Moretus museum —, but when we're interacting with the living, it is best to do so in person.

Of course, all this implies a timeframe that is different from the deadlines under which Katy is made to work. I say 'made to work', because things could be different organised than they are at OUP — as Brill has done, for instance. In the MCLI project, HUP had a long lead-time, and of course were planning a whole series, not suddenly realising that the font they'd selected for a given book didn't contain one of the diacritics needed for the text. But I think it is worthwhile considering under what conditions such a realisation even could be sudden and require a 48 hour turn-around. This isn't how books should be made.

If that is how books are made, then one has to adjust a lot of expectations to match, including expectations about what kind of fonts one can use.

Nick Shinn

Firstly Katy, I don’t agree with your definition of microtypography, which is just plain old typography, imho. Is this a new thing though?

Secondly, my EULA has always allowed licencees to modify fonts for their own use.

John Hudson

I should also point out that modifying a font independent of the source files for that font is not a trivial thing, and the amount of work involved and the number of things that can get broken in the process is significant. A few years ago, I was asked to add some smallcaps to a libre font that some friends were using in an academic festschrift. Initially, I had trouble locating source files for the libre font, and when I did find them they were in Fontforge format. In the end, I decided it would be easier for me to build fresh sources from the decompiled OTFs in FontLab than to familiarise myself with enough of Fontforge to do the work in that program. Today, the likelihood of libre font sources being available in UFO format reduces some of the headache, but the fact remains that if one wants to modify a non-libre font, even if the EULA permits it one may not be able to do so easily or without risk of e.g. being unable to recompile aspects of the font such as decompiled GSUB and GPOS tables. It's one thing for a foundry to grant permission for modification; another for modification to be a practical option.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Frode, even if my point does merit its own thread, it's not out of place here; this is something the initiator of this thread herself seems to agree with. However, I will remove my flag, as a courtesy. That said, not also flagging John's addressing of my points as off-topic smacks of favoritism.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

John, I'm happy to hear that you're more flexible than the current industry norm concerning modification. Being less dependent on retail than most designers probably helps; however to me those more dependent on retail should simply see the risk as coming with the cultural territory.

Concerning being falsely associated with poor quality (not that readers generally realize –or even care– who made the typeface) I've offered the following approach: a licensee who is modifying a font must alert the foundry (which gives the foundry the opportunity/motivation to offer to do it for a reasonable fee, instead of being tempted to extort); and they must mention the modification wherever the original design is mentioned (for example in a book's colophon). This is an "interaction with the living" that's generally entirely sufficient in my mind, especially when it involves an inherited interaction with the dead (whose oblivious heirs BTW are too often conveniently excluded).

Concerning what involves cultural contribution, I certainly agree there can be cases where a no-mod clause can help more than hinder. But let's not pretend that's its typical raison d'être.

Nick, along with Monokrom and Adobe, you have my respect for that. And culture thanks you.

John Hudson

On the subject of interacting with the living, for the SBL fonts EULA, which explicitly permits modification, I included a clause stating that any modified fonts should be sent to me and I retained the right to include any such modifications in future versions of the fonts. I was doubtful that anyone would try to modify the fonts, but I was also aware that anyone who did would probably be an expert in one or other of the scripts as used in Biblical scholarship, and I wanted to be able to identify useful additions and provide them to other users.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Nice. In fact I forgot to add a third part to my modification conditions: the licensee must send a copy the resultant font to the foundry. However I don't think requiring re-use rights is realistic.

David Vereschagin

Nick Shinn said:

Firstly Katy, I don’t agree with your definition of microtypography, which is just plain old typography, imho.

Agreed. "Microtypography" sounds like unnecessary, pretentious jargon. Typography is about all the details of selecting and setting type.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

(For completeness...)
Joyce has offered a correction here: http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/23154/#Comment_23154

John Hudson

I don't have a problem with the term microtypography. Typography refers to everything from the structuring of a publication down to the level of spacing between individual glyphs. It is sometimes useful to be able to refer to different aspects of this, and the terms macro- and microtypography are handy (and don't necessarily require agreement about where the division is, although I tend to think of microtypography as within a line of text, and macrotypography as everything above that level; ergo, leading is macrotypography, but kerning is microtypography). Looked at another way, microtypography is what typesetters used to do, while macrotypography is what typographers used to do.

KP Mawhood

@Nick Shinn
RE: Microtypography, the text above is a citation from Smashing Magazine. Sources indicate that micro typography was first coined in 1987 (Hochuli, Detail In Typography, p.7) with uses by other high profile names of the industry. The meaning has possibly evolved slightly, but the cited use pervades a plethora of articles and is used as a base definition in numerous discussions. Please feel free to browse google.
 
@David Vereschagin
The details that concern type function at different levels. As a straight forward definition, consider the different spatial relationships between character forms, and also between paragraphs, chapters, and columns. They are all typographic relationships, but function at different levels.

There's a host of literature, frameworks and typographic schema that identify these types of differences. If you wish to conflate any further arguments, please benefit the academics of this forum with the use of a new thread.

James Puckett

The problem with “microtypography” is that it’s several levels of jargon deep. To understand what it means you already need to know general design terminology and the terminology of typography. So it’s a word that is liable to confuse people. When you use it you should consider if you’re writing for an audience that will understand you. 

KP Mawhood

John Hudson said:

…modifying a font independent of the source files for that font is not a trivial thing, and the amount of work involved and the number of things that can get broken in the process is significant.

Thanks John, I'm aware of this. The mods have been very few – but, I know better than this. Substitutions of characters are more regular, these are not great – but sometimes a little improvement since I've reviewed them. The culture is shifting, there is more understanding, but it's slow. 

The idea with this thread is that if I can understand the information required, then I might be able to optimise the time involvement, and figure out our budgets – if there any possibility to support this kind of strategy. In the meantime, production continues as normal and bad typography persists. You can't stop the presses. 

JoyceKetterer

@Katy Mawhood because we are all about consistency of message our EULA conisders swapping of alternates to be a modification.  When people ask they always want us to do it for them (for which we charge very little or sometimes nothing depending on the size of the license) but if someone asked if they could do it themselves we would probably permit it.  When alternates are swapped we change the name of the font to Nameoffont_nameofclient so that no one can confuse it with the retail version.

KP Mawhood

James Puckett said:

The problem with “microtypography” is that it’s several levels of jargon deep. To understand what it means you already need to know general design terminology and the terminology of typography. So it’s a word that is liable to confuse people. When you use it you should consider if you’re writing for an audience that will understand you. 

This is a fair point.

James Puckett

I’m rewriting my EULA now and I think I’m just going to edit it down to granting permission to convert to outlines or raster files but requiring permission for creating any new font. Otherwise I have to add a block of legalese to the license, at which point most people won’t read it anyway.

Thomas Phinney

There's certainly value in keeping the EULA simple.

Nick Shinn

I’ve never come across the term “microtypography” until Katy mentioned it.

The distinction I’ve always recognized is between layout and typography, not macro and micro.

We live and learn. 

Chris Lozos

Katy, I assume your term "Microtypography" has no bearing on Willi Kunz's 1998 book?