The League's Typelog

Just watched this new video, What is Version Control?, from our...

Tue, 15 May 2012 09:51:01 -0400

Just watched this new video, What is Version Control?, from our friends over at Github, who recently brought Git’s web presence back to life.

It’s an awesome intro about why version control is awesome, and if you’re new to font design (or at least aren’t too old to be scared of new technology), you should check it out. We’re big advocates of git, and we’re big advocates of the UFO format because it works well with it.

It’s awesome.

Quick Typo Alert

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:58:15 -0400

In that last question we answered about OFL & apps, we wrote,

Essentially, as long as you’re not selling the program, and not just the font, it’s not a problem.

That really should have been “Essentially, as long as you’re selling the program, and not just the font, it’s not a problem.”

Whoops. Hopefully that didn’t screw anyone up. Thanks to all our peeps on twitter who caught that.

A Miniature City Built with Metal Typography, too cool. via...

Mon, 14 May 2012 14:09:54 -0400

A Miniature City Built with Metal Typography, too cool.

via @jasonsantamaria

Hi there - I've looked through the Open Font License but didn't see a statement specifically pertaining to embedding LoMT fonts in (iOS) apps. Is that allowed with attribution for all League fonts? Thanks - chad martin chad|at|pivotalaction|daught|com

Mon, 14 May 2012 13:01:00 -0400

Great question! And 10 points for reading the license!

If you haven’t seen it, there’s a pretty great FAQ that comes along with the OFL (we have a pretty version online here). There are a couple bullet points in there that are specific to software that should answer your question, but we can save you the trouble:

It’s totally cool. OFL fonts are allowed to be embedded in software, both open-source or commercial. Essentially, as long as you’re selling the program, and not just the font, it’s not a problem.

And attribution is also is not mandatory (sometimes you just can’t), but if you’d like to do it, we’d certainly appreciate it!

ALPHABETIC by Ariel Costa is super fun, and super Chunky.

Fri, 11 May 2012 09:36:22 -0400

ALPHABETIC by Ariel Costa is super fun, and super Chunky.

what font management application do you use?

Sun, 06 May 2012 11:41:37 -0400

Lettercase. It’s a platform that Micah’s been working on a for a long time now, because all the other font managers he’s worked with weren’t what he was looking for. It’s still in private beta, but you can sign up to be on the list for invites if you’re interested.

It's a pity that many of your fonts don't cover Latin Extended-A charset (I checked out Ostrich Sans, Sorts Mill Goudy, Goudy Bookletter, League Gothic and Junction). I love them and would love to use them, but on Polish websites it's impossible. Only Funwood was a lovely surprize :) Hope to see other fonts with a few of those additional letters some day.

Thu, 03 May 2012 09:49:00 -0400

Actually, we’ve had some opportunity to work on that for a few of our fonts lately. It’s difficult to find the time sometimes, but we do care about it & wanna make it happen. If anyone ever wants to help, you can fork any of our fonts on Github & contribute! We’d love to see that. :-)

We’ve seen some really wonderful, fun uses of Ostrich Sans...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:50:00 -0400

from www.elizabethbanks.com

from www.zipcar.com

from http://www.younghouselove.com

Damp Bicycles (top secret?)

We’ve seen some really wonderful, fun uses of Ostrich Sans these days. Thank you friends for pointing us to the new Zipcar materials. Outstanding work! And as if we needed another reason to love Elizabeth Banks!?

If you’re a dribbble user we’d love to see what you’ve done! Just add a tag with the font name to your shot (like this).

It inspires us to see what you do with materials from the League. We have some great new typefaces to share with you soon and are always motivated by what you share. Thank you!

chadilaksono: Junction Semi-Bold on “Pêcheurs du Monde”...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:29:05 -0400

chadilaksono:

Junction Semi-Bold on “Pêcheurs du Monde” identity project.

Yea, you heard right, Junction Semi-Bold I said! A few months ago a couple graphic design students asked me if it would be okay for them to make a semi-bold version of Junction for an identity project they’re working on.

I said yes, of course. And a few months later, here’s it is, Junction Semi-Bold, in use!

It’s always gratifying to find people who understand what open source is really about. It’s always fun to see someone take something I’ve done and make something more out of it that would benefit a lot of people.

They’re still finishing up the font, so it’s not available to download yet. But when it’s done, I’ll be sure to update The League’s library. Thanks Mathieu and Gwenaël for making this possible!

Are your fonts free to use?

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:31:16 -0400

They are! You can use them for commercial or personal work; for a more detailed breakdown of the Open Font License we use and how it works, we have sort of a mini-site set up via our Github.

http://theleagueof.github.com/licenses/ofl-faq.html

I just had the pleasure of helping Tyler push live some amazing...

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:18:25 -0400

I just had the pleasure of helping Tyler push live some amazing new updates he’s been working on to our old favorite, Blackout. The new styles look sweet, and his spec images even sweeter.

And as a selfless plug, if you haven’t had a chance to check out his most recent for-sale font, it’s pretty hot. We just bought it, it’s only $15, and we’re proud to support him. Get over there, lickety split.

themattnovak: Oh goodness, look at how nice these are.

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:54:06 -0500

themattnovak:

Oh goodness, look at how nice these are.

Micah got interviewed on The Changelog! We chatted about some of the tech behind making fonts...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:54:00 -0500

Micah got interviewed on The Changelog!

We chatted about some of the tech behind making fonts & The League itself, how awesome our supporting members are, and the history & future plans.

It was tons of fun to do, and Adam & Wynn were fantastic hosts. If you were piqued by anything we talked about, feel free to ask us a question!

Where has Flaminia disappeared to? I definitely recall it being there, and wayback machine proves me right, but it's as if the font vanished. Why is that?

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 12:57:13 -0500

We’ve always had trouble with Flaminia. The idea is wonderful, the designer is incredible, but people would download Flaminia hoping for a font they could use, and that wasn’t the case. It was really more of an experiment, something to play with multiple masters, and ended up with a lot confused people.

We’ll be re-adding it to our Github in the New Year, so that people will have the opportunity to extend it and play with it, but until it’s a font that people can use and install, we think it’s best outside of the catalogue.

INK is brand new, beautiful, and the first 100% student-run...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:06:05 -0500

INK is brand new, beautiful, and the first 100% student-run comics publication coming from SVA’s Cartooning Department. It’s free in both the App Store and as a PDF online.

They contacted us a while ago for our blessing in using The League’s fonts in their issue – to which we responded with, “Of course,” and it just launched, so they emailed us a super nice message letting us know.

I’m not all the way through yet, because there’s a lot of interesting material, but you should go grab a copy & peruse.

Just found a new free font from megaco FontFont, Erler Dingbats,...

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:37:06 -0500

Just found a new free font from megaco FontFont, Erler Dingbats, which is meant as a modern replacement for your prefab Dingbats font. Read carefully, there’s a difference between FF Dingbats 2.0 and Erler Dingbats, most of it being the extensiveness of the set, and the rest being the price.

The free one certainly looks great and could be useful, and I checked the EULA, they’re cool with embedding in “documents, applications, and devices.”

Knewave

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:54:57 -0500

Knewave

Had to share this. Just found via Tyler & Theo Rosendorf on...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:45:06 -0500

Had to share this. Just found via Tyler & Theo Rosendorf on twitter – Alphabets Everyday

Body Copy

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:46:03 -0500

For our body copy, we picked Calluna because it’s was great for the style we need, but a bunch of loyal Windows users have sent us screenshots that it’s not rendering so well on their machines, so we’ll probably be switching fonts soon. I want to keep the style the same, and Barry recommended a couple fonts that I’m interested in testing out, so we’ll try to push a site update within the next few days to make it more legible. Thanks for all the feedback about it, everyone!

Redesign Launch, 200 OK!

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:37:00 -0500

This morning, The League launched a big update, probably the biggest since our first launch, which if you haven’t read about yet, you should.

There’s been a ton of awesome feedback & support from everybody, and The League is intensely grateful. We’ve got a handful of Supporting Members already, and tons of awesome tweets. There were a couple interesting debates that cropped up today, so I figured I’d share.

The League Against Type Designers

A few type designers have gotten the impression that we think paying for fonts is bullshit. It most certainly is not. There are a lot of other things about the font design industry that are, mind you, but one of our long term goals is to be able to pay font designers to make great work. Hard work deserves good pay – but some people feel the call to give good work away. It’s extremely gratifying, and it’s amazing, but we’re not trying to force anyone to do anything. Our callout is simply to say that open-source fonts are to be taken seriously, and we will not be tied down.

The League Hates Dog Food

Certainly one of the controversial pieces with the visual redesign is that it doesn’t use our own fonts. In fact, it uses fonts that cost money, and a font embedding service that costs money. Surely that’s hypocritical.

It’s not. Twitter employees use email, and I bet a lot of Volkswagen employees would drive a Porsche if they had the chance. Design & branding are a delicate beast, and we tried a whole bunch of fonts before landing on the few we launched with – The League has great fonts, but they weren’t exactly what was right for the branding we needed. It’s fine. The League has never been about forcing anyone to use only open-source fonts. There’s no shame in using the best tools for the job at hand, and it shouldn’t be taken as a judgement of the tools you didn’t use.

No Hard Feelings

This is all just to say, we had a good day, and we got to explain our ideals a little more to those who were unsure of them. I was at the helm of Twitter all day, and honestly, I had a great time talking to people. A few of use debated, I think a few might have been upset, but don’t be – we’re all here together, and a good debate keeps us all healthy.

And One Last Thing

Lastly, I just wanted to solidify that I’m sincere in my desire to provide a kick in the butt. We’ve been quiet the last few months; not blogging, not tweeting much, and not getting much work done. I personally intend to blog frequently, search things out, and work on some of those fonts I’ve been meaning to expand. I know Tyler’s working on something great, and Caroline has had something for a while that I’ve been meaning to help her finish. So onwards and upwards! Thanks again for everyone’s support today; let’s keep the ball rolling!