Phinney on Fonts

Time 2021-11-02 12:03:36

Web Name: Phinney on Fonts

WebSite: http://www.thomasphinney.com

ID:219598

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Font Production Person Needed, first half2021 Science Gothic—Design/Production Person Needed Career Change!

Thomas my other car is a sans serif Phinney on fonts, typography 2021 December 17, 2020 0 - add yours

NOTE: The position has been filled!

Qualifications:Font production experience (which might be mostly type design)Variable font development experience, preferably with multiple axesBonus if you have worked with design space that did not have axes in the corners.Already qualified as a supplier with Google (and hence under non-​disclosure agreement)FontLab 6/​7 experience highly desirable, but not requiredTechnical skills including Python scripting are aplusHappy doing unusual font production that is possibly even more fiddly and repetitive than theusualFeaturesRemote work, any location possible!Flexible work hours. (I am on US Pacific time, however.)early January through May2021Expected hours/​month dependent on experience and productivityWorking with me (Thomas Phinney) and Vassil Kateliev on project, with Google as our clientDetails

WHAT? I have been commissioned to continue a variable font project I started this year with Google. In 2020, I did a first version with a weight axis, but now I need to do a big expansion in 2021—with two more axes. The work is primarily adding further masters to an existing typeface, not original design work. Given the desired timeline, there is too much work and not enough time for me to do itsolo.

WHEN? This would start at or near the beginning of January and run through May.

WHO? So I am looking for one more person to help work on it in FontLab 7; currently it is me plus some help from Vassil Kateliev. This will be work for hire, and the resulting typeface will be owned by Google (not open source). Vassil is our scripting guru, and can do some amazing things with automation—his contributions in that regard were invaluable in the version 1 project. This time he will likely also have some hands-​on production role. I will do considerable production work myself.

PUBLIC? Unlike some of my/​our recent projects, this isn’t open source, and I can’t yet talk about it publicly. For candidates who seem plausible, I will get you to sign an NDA with Google, and then I can tell you the details, and we can talkmore!

MONEY. This involves a fixed amount of money, with the hours dependent on your experience/​productivity. Although I am doing the primary screening and will be supervising the work, you will negotiate pay with Google, and be paid by Google (monthly after the end of eachmonth).

COMMENTARY. This is not artistically interesting work, but it is somewhat technically interesting, and you are working with some arguably nice people. Pay is OK, and it may lead directly or indirectly to future work. It will be a high-​profile project, but I am sorry to say it is not yet known if we will be able to talk about our contributions afterward.

DIVERSITY. Diverse applicants are especially welcome.

Process:

Contact me with the form below. If you seem like a plausible candidate, I will have Google share a non-​disclosure agreement (NDA) with you; you signing the NDA will allow me to explain the job in more detail.

Note that getting the NDA requires your postal address, and company name ifany.

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tags:google Science Gothic—Design/Production Person Needed July 29, 2019 0 - add yours

(UPDATE: Applications are closed. I definitely have enough qualified people to consider! Anyone who expressed interest should have heard from me before 5pm PST, August 6th,2019.)

Today I got back a signed contract, commissioning Font Detective LLC to do a new version of the classic American Type Founders’ typeface Bank Gothic (Morris Fuller Benton, 1930–34), for Google Fonts.
UPDATE: We are calling it Science Gothic.

This will be a multi-​axis Variable Font. I have done a fair bit of prototyping, but there is lots of work ahead! And, given the timeline, too much work and not enough time for me to do itsolo.

Freelance Type Design —Open Source Bank Gothic, FontLab VI

The new Bank Science Gothic will have an extended Latin and Cyrillic character set (about 1200 glyphs). It has weight, width and contrast axes, plus an oblique axis as well. I am looking for at least one more person (maybe two) to help work on it in FontLab VI; currently it is me and one p/​t person.

The typeface has 3 x 3 masters for weight/​width, and then double that again for contrast (and again for italics, although that will be basically oblique and largely automated). Luckily the square-​geometric design is well-​suited to this treatment and makes for mostly easier editing.

An initial demo-​ready deadline will be the end of August. Full-​time availability preferred, although the first week or so may be a bit slower. Aiming to have the font final in late November. This will be work for hire, and the resulting typeface will be open source, and licensed under the Open Font License.

More Bank Gothic in use—it’s everywhere! (Avengers Endgame movie title in the film, for instance.) But this is our chance to make it massively more versatile and flexible, and available to everyone.

How to apply: email me directly, or just leave a comment here (I won’t publish it) with your email address. I will send a link to a more detailed job description and moreinfo!

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tags:jobs, work Career Change! April 25, 2019 4 - add yours

In early June, I will be leaving FontLab! My Font Detective work continues to grow beyond what works with a full-​time day job. I am also looking for other gigs that are compatible with said investigations!

I am pleased with many things FontLab has accomplished for its customers in my time there, and have written about what we have done over on the FontLab blog. It has been a fun ride, and I wish my colleagues nothing but the best! But the time has come to move on and do other things.

What was once just occasional expert witness and related work has kept growing, and become quite frequent since I launched my “Font Detective” expert witness web site, a year ago—and even more so in recent months due to publicity around a particularly high-​profile case in Canada (see the Toronto Star and National Post articles).

But I can’t keep up with this, while also being full-​time CEO of FontLab. Yet the pay relative to time is excellent for the detective gig, it is quite fun, and I can imagine doing it part-​time into retirement 20years from now… so rather than restricting it to a sideline, I am now doubling down onit.

This is a bit tricky, seeing as the detective work is incompatible with being full-​time CEO, yet also not quite at the volume/​reliability to fully replace that full-​time work. Hence, I am looking for other part-​time or temp gigs that are compatible with my “consulting font detective” work:

Font consulting—design, technical, business, and other. Are you a foundry or type designer who needs some one-​on-​one review and lessons to up your type design game? Have a font tech problem that needs solving?Type design on my own and/​or for clientsTeaching, whether training people on FontLab VI, teaching type design, or other gigs. (This could include, but is not limited to, reviving the lately-​dormant Crafting Type workshops.)

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tags:FontLab, job, work Reliably Changing Versions ofFonts November 5, 2018 0 - add yours

For people who design fonts, swapping versions of your font can be a problem, as your operating system or apps have font caches which may become confused when you replace your fonts on the fly. The app you are using a font in may sometimes still display/​use the old version, even though you replaced it! So for people who need to be absolutely sure they are getting the new version, here are some options. Note that latest versions of Adobe CC apps may recognize fonts swapped on the fly. Office 360 as well, at least on Windows. So if you are not having trouble, and you are swapping fonts some other way, good for you! But if you are having trouble, here are some more options.

Here are some approaches for reliably swapping versions of fonts that have the same internal names, to new versions. This applies to both Mac and Windows, and across all apps as well. When working this way, as best as I recall, in the past 10–15years, I have only hit font caching problems once! I suspect that was just a failure to apply my method religiously enough. There are two options for fonts with the same internal names on the desktop, plus to avoid the problem entirely, there is an approach to making font names unique, and some links to web-​based testsites.

Option 1: Brute force (cross-​platform)Close apps that you are using the fonts in, particularly those which cache your fonts, including Adobe CC apps and Microsoft Office.Then, uninstall the “old” font version from your OS. Don’t just overwrite it in place with the new version! (If you are using a font management app, you can just deactivate, but I usually nuke them anyway, I don’t need 170 versions of the same font kicking around.)Relaunch those darn font-​caching apps, including Adobe CC apps and Microsoft Office. That’s after you uninstall the font. Even open a doc that uses the now-​missing font! This gives the appand its cachea chance to recognize the font is no longer there and update appropriately.Quit Office apps (without saving your docs, no need). Note: no need to quit Adobe CC apps, they can recognize newly-​installed fonts on thefly.Install your new font versions; or activate them in your font manager.If you are using Office apps with your fonts, you can launch them apps again and work normally.Option 2: FontNuke (Maconly)

I forgot about this option for a while, but was reminded of it by James Montalbano in a thread on TypeDrawers. FontNuke is a Mac utility that clears font caches, and then reboots your system. It’s available through major utility aggregators like MacUpdate and CNet. I’ve used it occasionally, and it works fabulously. Downside: it requires a system restart. That’s why I ended up tending to go with Option 1. (Also, Mac restarts used to take longer than they do nowadays. Yay for SSDs!) Upside: if your system font caches have gotten messed up, or you don’t want to go through all the steps above, it becomes the simplest solution.

Download from MacUpdateDownload fromCNetRead FontNuke intro or read theFAQOption 3: Font Naming Tricks (cross-​platform)

Option 1 seem like too much freakin’ work? Or you need something that works on Windows, or reboots suck? I hear you. That’s why as a font designer, I sometimes work with a system where instead of keeping the internal names the same, I actually put the build version number right at the end of the gosh-​darned family name, so it shows in the menu with the version number. I also put it on the end of the file name. I leave it this way as long as possible during development. Sure, this has its limitations, as the new font won’t just automatically substitute for the old one in existing documents. And it has to be changed before releasing the font. But if I am in the midst of frequent font revisions, it also means I can swap out font versions constantly, as often as I like, and not worry in the least about my apps or OS getting confused. That is pretty sweet.

Before generating the actual TTF or OTF font, increment a build number at the end of the font family nameRemember that your existing docs won’t recognize this as being the same font family.

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