Until 7/7/2021: Save 21% off FontLab 7 & explore the 99 reference “GetGo Fonts”

Adam Twardoch

Hello everyone! 

We’ve just published GetGo Fonts for FontLab — a collection of font projects available in FontLab’s native VFJ format under one of three licenses: CC-0 (public domain), Apache or OFL. Those are based on various opensource projects. Since we’ve modified the fonts here and there, we’ve given them new names, but of course we kept the relevant copyrights and author credits. The collection bundles a few single-stroke (skeleton) fonts and a number of “Zoto” fonts (based on the 2015 Apache-licensed Noto fonts). Check out the little website we made at ➡️ https://fontlab.com/getgo

Because of this release, FontLab is making a discount: until Wednesday 7 July 2021, you can buy FontLab 7 for:

➡️ US$71 for 1-year EDU (student/academic) license

➡️ $79 if you have FontLab VI

➡️ $158 if you have FontLab Studio 5

➡️ $181 if you have Fontographer or are a student/academic

➡️ $287 per license if you buy the 2× bundle (you can assign the two licenses to two entities)

➡️ $328 if you have Glyphs / RoboFont / TypeTool

➡️ $363 for a new full license

So in case you or your colleagues need a FontLab 7 license, now is a good time 😛Go to https://store.fontlab.com — then add the product to the cart, choose Use coupon code, enter TDRAW21 and click Apply coupon, then continue to Checkout.  

Toby Lebarre

What a coincidence that you make this special offer just as Font Creator 14 is being released.

André G. Isaak

I'm a little bit confused about the purpose of the GetGo fonts. If one needed, for example, a "template font" for some non-roman script, what would be the advantage of using your "Zoto" fonts rather than simply using the original Noto fonts from Google? What has actually been added to make these preferable to the originals from which they were derived?

Simon Cozens

Licensing, innit? The current Noto fonts are OFL licensed, which means any derivatives have to be OFL licensed. The 2015 fonts (which Adam is calling Zoto) are Apache licensed, which means any derivatives may be commercial.

Adam Twardoch

André — the Noto fonts are currently licensed under OFL, which means that any derivation must also be OFL. Noto fonts from 2015 were mostly single-style and they may contain bugs that were fixed later, but they have the advantage that they were Apache-licensed, so derivations can use other licenses (including commercial/proprietary) if they mention the original copyright and license. 

In addition, in some GetGo fonts, we’ve made small improvements to them, For example https://fontlabcom.github.io/getgo-fonts/ptit/ has more glyphs that are stroke-based than the original published at http://pecita.eu/b/ 

But altogether, of course the fonts we published are available in some form somewhere else. I made the effort to collect them and select them — I picked the ones that are interesting, for example https://fontlabcom.github.io/getgo-fonts/hint/ which shows how to do extensive TrueType hinting for many glyphs  

Adam Twardoch

Toby,
it is a coincidence indeed. I’ve long maintained that type design apps and font editors mostly complement each other — there are many people who use some combination of FontLab, Glyphs, RoboFont, FontCreator, FontForge, OTMaster, FontGoggles etc.

Different apps have different strengths. The DesignSpace+UFO formats were developed for interoperability between the apps, and you can combine apps to address various workflow needs. I’m glad that there’s a new version of FontCreator. As long as each of the commercial apps costs about as much as a single end-user license for a font family (sometimes a smaller one, sometimes a larger one), I think the tools are quite affordable!  

Ramiro Espinoza

Thanks Adam. I just purchased a license.