The League of Moveable Type

WHAT IS A REVIVAL TYPEFACE?

A revival typeface, simply put is a remake of an original typeface, usually older ones that are designed a long time ago. We’ve all seen different revivals for a classic font, take Garamond for example, there are hundreds of different Garamonds out there, they’re each a little bit different and has their own unique qualities, as summarized by this article, which explains in detail how different type foundries decided to take the original typeface and create their own version of it.

ALTERNATE GOTHIC & THE AMERICAN TYPE FOUNDERS

We decided that The League too, should create its own version of a classic typeface, and we want a version thats free, not only in terms of price, but also in terms of freedom.

We chose Alternate Gothic No.1 because we love the typeface. Its a classic, it can be futuristic or antique, but it’s simple and no-nonsense. And after doing a bit of research, we decided that Alternate Gothic is a safe typeface to revive. Which means that we won’t be stepping on anyone’s toes, by releasing our own version of it.

Alternate Gothic was originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Type Founders Company (ATF) in 1903. The company went bankrupt in 1993. And since the original typeface was created before 1923, the typeface is in the public domain.

COPYRIGHTS, OWNERSHIP & ETHICAL TYPE DESIGN

What is the Public Domain exactly? In short, it is a collection of works or intellectual properties which are not owened by anyone, making it a public property, and available for anyone to use for any purpose. The Bible or national anthems are examples of such works.

There are different ways that an intelectual property can enter the public domain. One way is the one described earlier, if the work was published before the 20th century copyright laws existed (1923) or if it has expired its natural term of copyright period which is 70 years after the author’s death.

It’s imporatant to review the ethical guidelines when remaking a font. Especially one that is not an open font. Here are some questions taken from TypeRight Ethics Guide, to ask before reviving a typeface: Has the latest copyright owner of the typeface been dead for more than 75 years? Is the copy right still current? And be sure to create your revival from the original artwork, and not from an existing digital typeface.

For the creation of League Gothic, we used scans we found of the original Alterate Gothic No.1 (ATF). From those scans we traced each character that was available to us: uppercase A to Z , lowercase a to z, numbers, as well as key punctuations. For the rest of the glyphs, such as special characters like accents and symbols, we took the liberty to create our own designs that would match the rest of the typeface.

GETTING STARTED & FINDING THE RIGHT RESOURCES

There are a few places you can go to find more information about the open-source type movement. The Open Font Library is a great resource for learning more in depth about the subject. It covers a lot of the bases, everything from open fonts, where there’s a list of different open fonts you can find on the web, high quality scans of typefaces that can be digitized and turned into open fonts. There is also a section about font licensing, and a comparison between different kinds of licensing as they relate to type, from Public Domain to the Open Font License.

Ellen Lupton’s Free Manifesto, is another great resource for an overview of the conversations surrounding the open source and the copyleft movements.

This is the starting point. Figuring out what to make. Next comes the fun part, figuring out how to make a revival font.