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Posts par d[esign]

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01/07/2010 à 03:34  [réponse]  When designing a font...

1. Depends on the initial idea but it's always good to start with a few caps, then lowercases which sink bellow the baseline to get a feel of the overall design and if it works. 16 minutes into the movie "Helvetica" Matthew Carter explains how certain glyphs form the basis for many of the others e.g. "h" can form "n" and "u" and "p" can form "q" and "d", mind you this doesn't work for all type, handwritten type being the obvious one.

2. All the ones in the standard FontLab (ISO/Adobe) set.

3. Depends on the font, a few days solid work usually (without scripts, because I don't know how to use them).

4. My daFont fonts have earned about $20 AUD in Adsense (which is really $0 because $150 is the minimum until Google writes the check).

This is an interesting topic; it'd be great to see what others have to say.


Édité le 09/07/2010 à 03:40 par d[esign]



@metaphasebrothel: Did you really think there for a moment that my idea (so seriously put) would fly!?


Édité le 01/07/2010 à 03:00 par d[esign]



"5" is responsible for the massive peaks. I guess it sort of proves definitively that having a small link on the home page boosts downloads considerably. What was most surprising was that on the decline from the update (for both fonts) there was a slight rise, almost like a second wind. I agree the graph is a bit much (that's why I don't do it anymore), but it really tells you a lot about how a product sits, for instance the fact that when Pic0 was released Zepto downloads dived and overall Pic0 picked up the old Zepto average at about 100-125 tells me that it replaced the product even though it's a different style and idea altogether. If I had of kept collecting data though I would have been able to prove that download averages decrease after updates (it's clear for Zepto and just starting for Pic0 on the graph).

It'd be awesome to have automated graphs like that under "my account" for daFont!

I hope there isn't anyone out there who is downloading their own font, over and over, just to move up on the Top Fonts page.

That'd be very sad... Maybe if they made an online game like "Download the Font" it wouldn't be so sad; download a copy of a font as many times as you can against the clock to win the golden EULA and make a font author rich through Adsense revenue (patent pending).



Oh yeah, almost forgot the point of the post:
Zepto (March 09): 18,106
Pic0 (May 09): 22,614

Here's some elaborate graph from when I used to collect data each night:
Red=Zepto Blue=Pic0

Guess what was responsible for the peaks?


Édité 2 fois. Dernière édition le 30/06/2010 à 16:22 par d[esign]



JasonArthur a dit  
Not sure where to find the upload dates...

Just under "Note of the Author" on the font's page.


30/06/2010 à 15:35  [réponse]  Look at each others fonts...

I won't be starting any kind of website anytime soon.

I was kidding, plus I think it would be even more illegal to redistribute the commercial fonts you didn't buy!


Édité 2 fois. Dernière édition le 09/07/2010 à 03:38 par d[esign]


30/06/2010 à 14:18  [réponse]  Look at each others fonts...

I looked at your commercial fonts, but I won't be doing reviews of anyone's commercial fonts, because they would and should be judged on a completely different basis. For a free or shareware font, my decision is "is it worth the bandwidth and the diskspace?" For a commercial font, the decision is "is it worth the money?" All of my reviews so far have taken into account amateur or semi-pro status, and the expectations of that level of expertise. When fonts are offered for sale, their quality should be judged against the standards of other commercial fonts. I hope some people will give you reviews of your commercial work. Unfortunately, I won't be one of them.

Fair enough. I thought it might have been because I'm not paying you, lol. I on the other hand judge type (anywhere) on aesthetics and fonts on aesthetics and usability, for me that's where the value is. There's commercial type, free type and type I see as graffiti in public spaces that I like and hate, ha ha, I'm constantly reviewing. Honestly the difference between commercial and free type in so many cases is just price.

I am in no way an expert in fonts. I don't even read the font identification forum, and there probably aren't more than 100 fonts that I can identify just by a text sample...

I wouldn't say being able to identify so many fonts makes anyone an expert, maybe just really good at memorising things. In my opinion a "Font (really should be "Type" ) Expert" should be able to distinguish type styles, know the terminology, critique and make good type.

If you read all of them, you'll know that I'm not fond of hand printed fonts, mostly because there are already too many of these.

There's the review! I'll make a "proper" font one day.

That series was surprisingly popular, although they are technically among my worst fonts. I think I spent about a day on each of those fonts. By contrast, I often spent multiple days on single glyphs in the Obey series.

My first font "BoxyBlocks" made it up to 30th on the MyFonts Best Seller List, it was my first and best font and I think I spent more time making "Corrente" and "Geometrix". As important as technical quality and execution is it's ultimately the idea that's fundamental.

I've probably got five or six GB of fonts that have never been extracted from their .zip archives, including yours.

Are you intending on starting up a daFont clone?


30/06/2010 à 10:16  [réponse]  Look at each others fonts...

I agree that the lowercase "f" in Pico/Pic0 looks out of place. At the time of creation it seemed like the best option as it didn't compete with the uppercase "F". An option would be to utilise the lowercase "f" used in Pico's ligatures as the lowercase "f". Although it's higher than the caps-height it has a more natural look.


Lol at the Sesame Street reference.

Zepto's main glyphs (letters and numbers) are all 3 units wide (excluding "i", "j" and "l" ). I guess you could say it's an optical illusion. The lowercase "c" with cedilla is terrible considering the cedilla is about as big as the "c", but because of the self imposed constraint of making a tiny pixel font I really had no choice, same for the lowercase "s" and "z". A sub-pixel job would be the true solution but whether anyone would be willing to use six overlapping fonts over each other (grey, blue and brown and tones of those colours) I'm not sure. It's something that would have to wait until fonts are able to be programmed with colours. That would be so cool...

This is a sample of Zepto in use from my site:


Unfortunately some of the glyphs on the daFont glyph map previews for my fonts are skewed and the spacing for the Zepto preview isn't right, hence the link to my site in the previous post which also links to MyFonts which provides a nice preview.

Thank you for the critique Bito; it's great to have my concerns reaffirmed. I'm intrigued as to why you don't want to look at commercial fonts though?

Btw: As you can see from my failed attempt at using HTML, how do you display pictures in a post? (Thanks Bito)


Édité 3 fois. Dernière édition le 30/06/2010 à 12:50 par d[esign]


30/06/2010 à 03:57  [réponse]  Look at each others fonts...

I would really appreciate some critique for my fonts (http://www.domenicosdesign.com/fonts)!


29/04/2010 à 12:01  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

Pi Luo a dit  
Which site offered you money? Maybe I should request to have my fonts removed as well

As funny as it would be for a whole bunch of font designers to ask this webmaster for money, I don't really want to promote any of those clone sites here.


22/04/2010 à 11:34  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

... I'll let you have the last word

I understand you can't have two fonts with the same "internal" name installed, I appreciate the fact Maniackers Design has a font called Pico as well which would create such a conflict, my fault for not looking outside of MyFonts.com for names (I assumed that if the name Pico was available on MyFonts that it'd be the only font with that name). I'm sure that many people would agree with me that the name of my font Pico and even the old Pic0 poster text you mentioned (which was fixed long ago, except on the sites which shouldn't have Pic0) has nothing to do with "Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts" and that's what I mean by relevancy.

But I guess enough of that now; let's get back to "Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts"; font author experiences, solutions, opinions, anything besides the naming of my fonts and old .png graphics...


21/04/2010 à 10:57  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

I seem to have been wrong about the pronounciation of your font name. The zero and the capital O in the font used for this forum look very much alike. If it is a captal O, then it would not be possible to have two or more of your Pico, your PicO, and the Maniackers Pico installed at the same time, as they all have the same font name. This adds further ambiguity to the interpretation of the .png graphic in v. 1.0 posted on dafont in May, 2009, as the Maniackers' Pico had already been released by that time.

My point was that the terms of use for JasonArthur's Rough Typewriter are crystal clear and explicit, but your terms for PicO can legitimately be misinterpreted. I'm not an apologist for the fly-by-night font sites that obtain their files from dafont. I'm just suggesting that, when you have specific intentions with reference to the use and placement of your font, you should express those intentions with precise wording, preferably within the font header or the license information contained within the font file, where people can read them even if the supplemental files have not been included.

Again I'm going to bring up relevancy; what does my font's naming have to do anything with this topic? As for the poster, the 1.0 package is old, 1.0's poster has been fixed (as you know) and I can't change the old files those clone sites are holding on and I wouldn't want to anyway because they shouldn't provide the files to begin with.

Just looking at the licensing information on the font files preloaded on my Mac, only Monotype fonts have lengthy licensing information like Rough Typewriter. Yes I could put lengthy licensing information in my fonts like few do but I can't see anyone abiding by the EULA better or clone sites not redistributing my fonts because that information is in the font file, those that are honest and take licensing seriously will contact me if they're confused.


20/04/2010 à 11:37  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

I'm happy with the information contained within my fonts. "Vague" is your opinion, I think "Do Not Redistribute" is clear if you understand English. I can't see how it can be interpreted differently; would someone think "Do Not Redistribute" means don't redistribute your computer screen because it's showing that text on it?

I'm not sure what changes you made to this font between the v. 1.0 from May, 2009, and the v. 1.1 from January, 2010, but the .png graphic has changed completely. In the older version of the .png, you state "Like Pico but free, hence the name Pic0", but the notation that "Pic0 is free for personal use" is in light gray text, only five pixels high, which makes it easy to miss, and unable to be read unless the graphic is magnified.

How is that relevant if I've fixed it (better still, how is it relevant to this discussion)? New designs are created to solve design problems; small grey text was one of those problems. I honestly didn't think it needed to be big, but I was wrong and now it's big and there's a link to obtain a commercial license and it also says "thanks for downloading Pic0 from dafont.com" so it's clear where it originates from unless the poster's been removed.

It should be noted that the name of your font, when pronounced, is "Pic zero", as opposed to "Pick-Owe". "Pico" is a font designed by Masayuki Sato for Maniackers Design in 2008, (his font doesn't resemble yours). Perhaps you could tell us the font to which you were referring in the "Like Pico but free..." graphic from v 1.0

Pico is the first commercial pixel font I made, then I created another pixel font called Zepto (my first free font) and after seeing how many people downloaded it on MyFonts.com I wanted to distribute a free version of Pico, to make it fair for the people who bought (and buy) Pico commercial licenses, I released a trimmed version called Pic0 which is pronounced the same but with the whole H4x0r naming thing which was also indicative of its $0 price. The name Pico came to me because it's a prefix for SI units with a factor of 10^-12 which is quite small, like the font (not 10^-12 small but you should get the gist), but mostly it had a nice ring to it. I hope that answers what I was referring to in the statement "Like Pico but free".


19/04/2010 à 10:56  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

If other sites want to host some of my fonts, I have no problem with that.

I wouldn't have a problem with it as well if they actually asked for the files (to begin with, rather than ask when you want them off) and did it to genuinely provide free fonts to the world rather than making a quick buck from ad banners.

I find it interesting when some site in Brazil, Germany or Viet Nam have decided to exhibit one or two of them

Admittedly, I found it quite interesting to see my free fonts on a Chinese site; I don't even have any Asian glyphs in my fonts.


Édité le 19/04/2010 à 11:07 par d[esign]


15/04/2010 à 15:54  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

You're very good at putting forward a persuasive argument; the most reassuring thing you said there was "they usually live a few months/years and then disappear". I didn't know that and learning that now demonstrates these sites are running off a not-so-profitable business model, which makes me happy as they really are trying to make money from stealing.

I'm not certain of the efficiency of a petition, but why not...

I like "but why not"; lets go with that! Considering font authors who have come across this thread have voiced they dislike what's going on I'm pretty sure such a petition would fill up pretty quickly if it were made visible to all authors on this site, it'd eventually be something which can be emailed to the clone sites much like what individual authors send out to these sites but with many more authors backing it up.


11/04/2010 à 03:03  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

You don't need to write any thing about exclusive rights to daFont or anything like that into a font license; just (if your font editor allows it) write it plain and simple into to the font file's copyright or information section: "Redistribution is prohibited ...". Violate that and you violate the license, then the user has no right to use the file. It's what I do with all of my fonts, free and commercial. The readme file is good as a secondary but the information in the font stays with the user for as long as they use the font.

The Pirate Bay Linotype letters are pretty funny, especially by using different fonts to write the letter (not sure if they're all Linotype fonts though). At the end of the day though the Pirate Bay is a torrent tracker and isn't hosting the files like these daFont clones.

What do you guys think of the petition idea I mentioned above? Ultimately we would have a statement telling these sites to stop redistributing and it would all be backed by many daFont font authors, it would save individual authors from sending their own requests to these sites and it would be much more powerful.


10/04/2010 à 17:45  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

Wow, thank you for the prompt and in-depth reply!

Firstly angry's an overstatement, if anger were the case I would have asked you to strip my fonts from this site immediately. I'm mostly surprised how many shoddy sites are doing this. I'm well aware the openness of the internet makes it hard to control files spreading but at the same time I can't understand it being impossible to at least curb spreading. You've ruled out downloads for registered members but how about captchas, slowing down or blocking IPs that are downloading hundreds of fonts each day or blacklisting bots that are doing the same (I can't imagine the shoddy site owners doing this manually unless they're bigger losers than I thought).

I know it takes time to look out for this crap and fix it but doesn't it just annoy you slightly what's happening? At the end of day making the shoddy sites' job harder makes daFont a better place for users and authors.

P.S. By "pursue" I meant to go after the issue; sending a letter or finding a solution other than suing (I'm not sure if you thought that because the word "sue" is in "pursue" ), as I mentioned above suing is "a little extreme".

Hmm, just thinking about letters, considering my letters to the most of these sites have been successful how about we setup an open online petition on this issue for font authors that we can send out to these shoddy sites, you mentioned daFont has no rights but a petition filled by the rights owners would be quite powerful and perhaps legally binding (correct me if I'm wrong anyone).


10/04/2010 à 03:14  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

danielpoeira a dit  
If any of those websites have advertising on them, and they usually do, they are actually ripping DaFont off, by attracting people to their website with our fonts collected by DaFont. They're not only using our work without permission, they're also stealing attention that could be coming to DaFont.

That's a very good reason for DaFont to pursue this; they're essentially making money from daFont's and the font Authors' hard work.

I'd be really great to hear what Milan has to say, if he knows this is going on and if so, if he has tried contacting these sites with any success and what the sites have said (if anything), such as reasons for keeping stolen fonts.


04/04/2010 à 13:42  [réponse]  Sites Redistributing daFont Fonts

JasonArthur a dit  
I work hard on my fonts and only want them listed where I can keep track of them.

My exact sentiments. Unfortunately the only people that understand the hard work put into fonts are those that have done the hard work. Obviously the creators of these daFont clones haven't made a single font.

I'm not sure about the legalities elsewhere in the world, but here in Australia, copyright is automatically granted to the designs which make up my fonts and redistributing the font without authorisation (like the clone sites have done) is illegal, at least here. Regardless of whether it's legal or illegal in other countries it's morally wrong to steal someone else's product (free or paid) and make profit from it by flashing advertisements to unsuspecting users.

I definitely don't want to sue; it's a little extreme. But I do want to see registration and login as a requirement to download fonts on daFont because I'm certain this copying and redistribution isn't done by hand, if it is done by hand this system would allow for download quotas or keeping tabs on accounts downloading everything and blocking them if necessary.


01/04/2010 à 16:00  [réponse]  Is Zepto Too Small?

I've PM'ed you the link.



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