Bryce Wilner writes,
When I type, sometimes, writing to somebody I’m not too interested in (or don’t have much to communicate to although I owe this person an email), I get some phrase that stays in my head a few seconds until it hazes to something as hard to recall as a dream. It may be the string “bbbbbbbbbbbb” that I press into my keyboard and stare through before I delete it from my screen and my brain. I can’t say whether the sound or the image of the string comes first; they seem to occur simultaneously and disappear in much the same way. And I can’t say with surety that the way the string looks influences how I pronounce it in my head. This sequence can loop for minutes before I remember where I am in my workflow and in my schedule. I raise my face out of the white text entry field into a desk space surrounded by printed paper and hand-written notes. And grinning like a tiger!
This serves as an introduction to an idiosyncratic (perhaps “particular” is better) collection of fonts and font-related projects that he presents on Library Stack. (And umm, if you don’t know about Library Stack, you should.) Anyway, the collection at hand is named “Open Font License.”
The Open Font License itself is a contract which binds a user and a software publisher in a mutually dependent and beneficial agreement governing the distribution of font software. In its preamble, the license describes itself:
The goals of the Open Font License (OFL) are to stimulate worldwide development of collaborative font projects, to support the font creation efforts of academic and linguistic communities, and to provide a free and open framework in which fonts may be shared and improved in partnership with others.
Bryce is invested in the license, as he designs fonts. (He also designs websites, books, he teaches, he writes.) If you visit his website, you will see one in use:
It looks simple enough at first, though you might wonder if your eyes have gone fuzzy. Look closer and you see what is happening.
Close looking, or at least close attention, seems to be part of the game. Scroll to the bottom, a click on the middle of three dots leads to a rather hidden pdf, specimen sheets for several of his selected open fonts.
Bryce will share some recent research and writing around the Open Font License.
March 27, 2023
Open Font License
Open Font License
Reading
Open Font License (Bryce Wilner)
Open Font License (SIL)
Resources
“All at once” (Bryce Wilner)
Assignment
Research, Reconsider, Repeat (continues)
Visitor