Create metric-equivalent font

I, and I suspect many with me, consider horisontal metrics intellectual property. The recent X Grotesk with matching metrics to a certain German type designer’s high profile sans serif definitely affected my opinion of the publisher/designer in question.

No. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more cases like this.


Bury me!

Use in design is hardly the only or, these days, even the primary value proposition for a font. Companies create metrics compatible fonts because they’re valuable to those companies. Metrics compatible fonts are derive value from the investment in creating the original—otherwise, no one would bother making them—, so shouldn’t the people who made that investment receive a share of that derived value?

DC: I think you mean a certain American software corporation's sans serif, that was made as work for hire by a certain Dutch designer living in Germany.

...

JH: shouldn’t the people who made that investment receive a share of that derived value?

As I said in 2018, the concept of ownership is not so simple.

If the people who made the investment of effort to make something did so under work for hire terms, and the people who hired that work aren't in the business of making things (which is why they hired it out), and then someone else wants to make something compatible, then, well, what do you suggest, John?

I generally benefit from someone else's work every time I buy a thing, and I regard that as okay™, assuming I am paying the correct person at the time.

In metal, Times New Roman (Monotype) preceded Times (Linotype). The Times newspaper, like most others, used Linotype machines, so the design was adapted for Linotype setting pretty immediately. That required some adjustments to the design. I’ve not looked closely at those adjustments, but presume they involved fitting to duplex widths, compensating for the inability to have overhanging kerns, etc.

In digital, Times precedes Times New Roman, at least as they came to exist on mjaor platforms. Linotype licensed their version to IBM, Adobe and, crucially, Apple. The version of Times New Roman that Monotype made for Microsoft was adjusted to be compatible with Apple’s Times.

It would be a fallacy if I wasn’t clear that this is a moral preference, and not an imperative. It is my preference. I just happen to think it is a good one, even if it sometimes gets complicated or frustrating in practice. Morality is often complicated and frustrating, regardless of whether arising from preference or imperative.

Yes, I try to foreground the interests of the people who make things and grow things, and I am aware that this makes me out-of-step with capitalism.

I’m not aware of any examples, but in part this is because until recently most of the metrics compatible projects involved older typefaces like Times and Helvetica that originated in the industrial phase of type making. That meant not only that the original designers were not around, but that the relationship of the designer to the fonts was different than it is now. I think this has contributed to the impression that this is a matter between companies, not between people. As metrics compatible projects shift towards providing compatible fallback to fonts that have been recently created by living and working designers, I think that impression needs to be re-set and a new set of practices encouraged.

ATypI used to have a ‘moral code’ — which I was instrumental in having removed from its statutes when I was vice president in the mid 2000s —, that permitted member companies to copy each others’ typefaces after 15 years. It was an artifact of the industrial period, designed to encourage companies to license typefaces to other manufacturers, and so reduce the practice of unauthorised copying. [That was only part of why Cynthia Batty and I pushed to have it removed from the statutes; the main reason was that the the code meant ATypI was effectively a cartel, which had implications for non-profit status and for participation in standards work.] I think the code was flawed in many ways, and definitely outdated, but I think it made some sense as a way to address the situation in which there was a benefit to customers in having access to the same or similar fonts on different typesetting machines, by a) encouraging licensing and b) defining terms under which derived works would be permitted. To be clear, I think the ‘after 15 years you can copy typefaces’ terms only ever served the interests of the machine manufacturers and not the designers. But the idea of a framework for agreeing that some kinds of limited derivative work — e.g. compatible metrics and kerning — might be permitted under specific circumstances is not terrible if it reduces unlicensed and unauthorised copying.

In an age of document interchange and editing, there is a functional need for metrics compatible fonts on different platforms. At the moment, companies are simply presuming they can go ahead and have such fonts created and ignore questions about the ethics of copying metrics data. What I would like to see is a) genuine and good faith efforts to license the original fonts (see, for example, the recent agreement that includes Microsoft document fonts in Adobe Fonts), or b) genuine and good faith efforts to commission the new compatible fonts from the original font makers (i.e. don’t just go to Big Type Company X because that’s where you got your other fonts), or c) payment of fees to original font makers for limited copying of font metrics data (which I think requires some flexibility on both sides, i.e. font makers should not refuse reasonable offers in this regard).