SMOR by Nina Stössinger is out now through my foundry Overlap Type.

https://store.overlaptype.com/fonts/smor
#typedesign #graphicdesign #typography

The new effort is being led by Fontstand’s Peter Biľak and Andrej Krátky, now joined by Christine Bateup of Frere-Jones Type, and Christopher Slye. Together, we’re finalizing the legal framework and details of expanded licensing, which will be built on Fontstand’s existing platform.

Fontstand is becoming a co-op! At the Fontstand Conference in The Hague, we announced that we’re becoming a cooperatively owned and managed font distributor – with expanded licensing and services. Stay tuned as we create a more equitable, transparent and democratic model for font designers.

@typographica @flaviazim @LauraMeseguer Is Carol Twombly the right generation?

@benkiel @Okay also, Christine’s exact talk at last year’s ATypI was on “Legal challenges of copyright in parametric and AI-generated content” (albeit with a US slant), which they are calling for again? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=65Zb7S56DwQ

From @frerejonestype’s Christine Bateup, a very useful legal primer from on AI + copyright pertaining to any creative work, not just fonts. https://youtu.be/65Zb7S56DwQ?si=bN6pZ5C00xB47o5a

@db I think it’s a fascinating look at some under appreciated figures. Definitely recommended, and available through the Katherine Small Gallery website. In a couple of weeks I’m doing an event with Inge in the Boston area about the book: https://ksmallgallery.com/blogs/events/modern-pioneers-in-typography-and-design-inge-druckrey-in-conversation-with-tobias-frere-jones

If you haven’t already, check out the latest project from @elliotjaystocks and become a backer! We’re one of the many foundries to take part.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elliotjaystocks/8-faces-presents-fine-specimens

On the blog today: Doug Wilson @onpaperwings documents the development of the Landmark typeface, from a high-profile commission to a retail family.
https://frerejones.com/blog/designing-landmark

More classic moves from the PE playbook: load up the company you acquired with unsustainable levels of debt so you can pay yourself a massive dividend, but hey, at least you’ll have made plenty of money for yourself if/when it all falls apart. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/font-designer-monotype-nabs-1-221517967.html

@klim @BijouType Hey Dan, beyond the question of what the salary band is, you might want to look into whether you should be including this range in the job posting. If a non-NYC business has at least one employee in NYC (which I believe you do), and an advertised job could be performed in NYC (which seems to be the case here), then New York City’s pay transparency law requires a good faith pay range to be posted in job advertisements.

@arrowtype We figured there would be some heat from this, but from our perspective, it’s really important that as an industry we’re clear with developers what the legal boundaries are with using our copyrighted material in data sets, just as other creative industries are trying to do. Particularly with people who throw any consideration of this to the wind.

@arrowtype @simoncozens @typographica @klim @jasonsantamaria Yes thanks for speaking up. We just posted a response to the GitHub discussion also. https://github.com/SerCeMan/fontogen/issues/1#issuecomment-1747486006

@klim I have some thoughts, we should talk sometime!

@litherland There are ways we can work against Monotype to try to ensure the longer-term health of the independent type industry and create alternative exit strategies, but turning to a different PE source sure isn't it. -CB (7/7)

@litherland You can see TTF on Eagle Private Capital's list of portfolio companies (https://www.eagleprivatecapital.com/portfolio-companies.html), but you won't find any public information about it on TTF's website. And any guesses about who they're likely to sell to once the current PE backers want out in a few years? I hope those selling to TTF understand this.(6/7)

@litherland I also can't see how The Type Founders is any different when they also owe their existence to PE funds. They're not as large as Monotype of course but the general principles are the same once you get PE involved. And dare I say it's worse in some ways as TTF is very opaque about where they get their money -- their chief (maybe sole?) PE backer is Eagle Private Capital, a midsize PE firm. (5/7)

@litherland And then what? The PE firms will be fine, they don't actually put that much of their own $ into these deals (much of it comes from investment funds they manage, the rest from debt financing), and extract high fees for the "privilege" of being owned by them so they tend to recover their initial investments fairly quickly. But the debt, at increasingly high interest rates, must be paid. There's no way it doesn't come crashing down, as so many examples across other industries show.(4/7)

@litherland What I think is more concerning is how this ends. Leaving ethics aside (which, to be clear, I find morally bankrupt), objectively Monotype's done a good job of acquiring assets and extracting as much value as possible from them, from both designers and customers. New owners will be working with this same playbook, but they're running out of target foundries, and I don't think continuing to squeeze more and more out of their customers will be great in the long term either. (3/7)

@litherland The only buyers here are likely to be consortiums of other PE firms, which again is pretty typical for large-scale acquisitions. They'll all do their own due diligence to see if that $4 billion figure is realistic, outrageous or somewhere in between. And then the cycle will repeat itself later, once that group decides to exit in another (likely) 4-6 year period. (2/7)