Eric Spiekermann and Jürgen Siebert no longer like Adobe and Berthold

But perhaps it was a cold-blooded business decision to leave them out?
Perhaps even one made by Adobe or Berthold?

They also left out DTL or TEFF. Why? They didn't want to be part of Fontbook. Could it be that Adobe did something similar?

Uli, read Jürgen Sieberts answer (from 14.9.06) to RobertMichaels Posting in this blogentry. Quote (rough translation): "We wrote to the most interesting foundries and asked if they wanted to be within the book or work with FSI. (...) Some denied (DTL, Enschede ...)."

Renko,
Do you want to say that Jürgen Siebert wrote to Thomas Phinney at Adobe? What did he answer? "Keep the old Adobe fonts Minion, Utopia etc., but label them as Monotype fonts and delete Adobe as a font manufacturer"? Is that what you and Jürgen Siebert want to say?

I suddenly lost the desire to buy it, it seems to lack some important fonts.

Héctor

Uli, why don't you ask Jürgen Siebert directly? And tell us afterward the conclusion of your discussion? Thank you.

Héctor, there are 100,000 digital fonts.
It would be impossible to include them all.
So is still be a good addition to any font library, despite the omissions.
Other hardback specimens of the digital era: Font Bureau and Indie Fonts (1, 2, and soon 3), and...?
The Garamond Premier specimen was the best thing in the TypeCon goody bag. But then, I have a softness for Strathmore, such beautiful colours.
House Industries does nice specimens, but they are not proper specimens, as no alphabet showings.
Emigre and H&FJ have beautiful specimens, but they are not AFAIK available in hard cover.

Just a quick remark to someone who keeps complaining about other peoples’ bad research:

1. My first name is spelled with a k, as in Erik, not with a c. It is printed properly on the cover of the FontBook.

2. I have never been an employee of Berthold or any of its affiliates. I have no idea where you get that information from.

3. That book is called a “compendium” of digital fonts. Look up what that word means.

Shoddy work like this disqualifies anybody from commenting on other peoples’ work.

And as has been said by others, there are many reasons why not every typeface under the sun is in the FontBook. It always takes two sides to make a bargain.

> 1. My first name is spelled with a k, as in Erik, not with a c. It is printed properly on the cover of the FontBook.

I intentionally wrote "Eric" instead of "Erik" to keep the Typophile readers happy and alert knowing that you as a hair-splitter would fall for that trap.

> 2. I have never been an employee of Berthold or any of its affiliates. I have no idea where you get that information from.

In your own biography at the FontShop website, you write yourself: "arbeitete vornehmlich für die graphische Branche - darunter Berthold", i.e. "worked for Berthold". So you yourself confessed that you worked for Berthold, didn't you?

> 3. That book is called a “compendium” of digital fonts. Look up what that word means.

In your own preface to the FontBook 2006, you declare that this compendium "is a truly unique type encyclopedia" (see page 6). So you yourself explained what the word "compendium" means for you, didn't you?

> Shoddy work like this disqualifies anybody from commenting on other peoples’ work.

Do you mean by "shoody work" your own FontBook 2006?

> And as has been said by others, there are many reasons why not every typeface under the sun is in the FontBook. It always takes two sides to make a bargain.

I did not say that a one-volume book can contain "every typeface under the sun".

The crucial point is that you write in your own preface: "The editors emphasise their desire to present a work of reference rather than a sales catalogue" (see page 7). But your FontBook 2006 is not a work of reference, it is a sales catalogue:

- In a "work of reference", in a "truly unique type encyclopedia", a font manufacturer (e.g. Adobe) and his fonts (e.g. Adobe Garamond Premier Pro) are included by objective criteria.

- In a "sales catalogue", a font manufacturer and his fonts are included, if you can "make a bargain" (your own words) with the font manufacturer.

Since the font manufacturer Adobe did not "make a bargain" with you, this font manufacturer was excluded from the FontBook, and since you could "make a bargain" concerning the Brendel font forgeries , they were included by you. "Bargain" may be okay for a "sales catalogue", but "bargain" is definitely not okay for "a work of reference", for "a truly unique type encyclopedia".

“worked for Berthold”
I work for clients, that’s how i make a living. That doesn’t mean they employ me. I designed literature, advertising, exhibitions and specimens for Berthold from the early 80s until their demise and they paid my fees for that work. You should perhaps sometimes think about what you read and not simply repeat the words like a parrot.

And only one word about the book: we can only print fonts that we have, as we do not steal data, nor scan specimens in from other books. If suppliers won’t let FSI have that data – for whatever reason – we cannot show it. Blame the foundries, not the publishers. With 35,000 showings, FontBook is still a compendium. It doesn’t claim anywhere to be exhaustive, complete or the only reference book. We measure ourselves by our deeds, not by someone else’s words.

Don’t you have a day job or do you spend all your time complaining about other people?

Of course, a book like the fontbook just can't be complete, for various reasons, and stands a good chance to be outdated or even more inclomplete the day it leaves the press. nonetheless, i truly respect people who undertake such a challenge and the effort they put into it, esp. as they must be aware of the factors mentioned above.
And let's not forget, FSI is a company dealing with fonts, not an independent book publisher, and of course they won't include fonts they don't carry. Of course it is sad not to have fonts of Berthold, TEFF, DTL, etc. included, but if you have a bit of experience in the business, you know they are out there and where to get these if you want or must.
It is great to have a book like FB around, esp. in times where dozens of new fonts seem to be released every day.

" I doubt whether the new FontBook 2006 is a non-partisan, objective reference work"
An interesting point of view. Now, to get the thing before all the publicity makes it a seller's market again. . . ;)

Most font books are non-fiction, reference, catalog, print samples, at least. They are also collectables, status symbols, beautiful objects, tools of a trade, and many more things. The publishers, for the most part, gather what they Know they are going to have for sale, organize it for easy finding, price items for easy buying and try to print, price and publish the book in a mutually cost beneficial form for easy access, (non-fiction, reference, catalog, print sample).

As such, I doubt that the energy, time or planning for non-partisanship could have that much of an effect at the editorial level, the decisions having been made in font licensing. Besides, if you miss Adobe's or Berthold's or Font Bureau's whole library, well get their books, specimens, urls, and make a bigger boooook :)

> I work for clients, that’s how i make a living. That doesn’t mean they employ me.

I say that you deleted Berthold and ascribed Adobe fonts to Monotype, and you start a distracting discussion about the distinction between "to work for" and "to be employed by".

The "Contents" section (pages 1-53) abounds in false ascriptions of fonts, such as the false ascription of all Adobe fonts to Monotype. It seems that these false ascriptions were part of the "bargain".

"Don’t you have a day job or do you spend all your time complaining about other people?"

I've been wondering this too.

Uli, perhaps your new calling is to make a complete, objective, comprehensive, non-commercial, exhaustive font directory, and update it every year.

Spiekermann: My first name is spelled with a k, as in Erik, not with a c. It is printed properly on the cover of the FontBook.

Stiehl: I intentionally wrote “Eric” instead of “Erik” to keep the Typophile readers happy and alert knowing that you as a hair-splitter would fall for that trap.

This illustrates beautifully how Uli works. It's not the first time he's used such techniques on Typophile. There may be a few legitimate questions in his diatribe but I haven't answered them here because I don't respond to forum trolls as a personal policy.

For many people, the characterising feature of trolling is the perception of intent to disrupt a community in some way. Inflammatory, sarcastic, disruptive or humorous content is posted, meant to draw other users into engaging the troll in a fruitless confrontation. The greater the reaction from the community the more likely the user is to troll again, as the person develops beliefs that certain actions achieve his/her goal to cause chaos. This gives rise to the often repeated protocol in Internet culture: "Do not feed the trolls."

I will answer, to the best I am able, FontBook questions asked by others, in any other threads -- or at least direct the question to those that know more than I. As for this thread, I'd consider it fruitless, or at least dead and rotten.

One is not helping the public by refusing answers to questions asked. These questions may be either foolish, malevolent or embarrassing, but nonetheless they deserve reverence if the information they are inciting is useful to the public.

Calls for solidarity or the community's sympathy, by disregarding and distrusting the posers of these questions, constitute rhetorical mischief and hence are completely irrelevant as regards the matter at hand.

In short: as a font buyer, a printer and devoted typography enthusiast, I am interested in the ways of my trade, and I am entitled to a rightful answer from all parties concerned.

Nobody's entitled to anything except being treated decently.
And answering the questions of a witch-hunter is not covered.

People have enemies, and harbor enemies within themselves.

hhp

Hrant — I do not care about the person behind these questions, neither about his supposed inner conflicts, nor his methods. I care about his questions only, in as far as they might disclose information that I consider useful for my business. If you tell me he's a "witch-hunter", that does not concern me. You may consider "witch-hunters" or "trolls" as your "enemies", not worthy of a decent answer, but you should not impose these personal moral judgements of yours onto the public's interest, by denying others a rightful answer. Morality simply isn't relevant for the plain factual matter that is at stake here.

I recur that I am interested in the business tactics of the font industry, because as a font user and buyer I am directly involved. As a client of this industry, by paying for licenses that claim to give me a lawful user's right, I earned the right of verifying whether the goods and/or services I paid for, conform to what they are sold as, and/or to hear others that verified this for me.

The way in which similar cases were handled before within our business, is painful and unbecoming. If there is something like a "Berthold Gate" in the font industry, this should be dealt with appropriately, that means publicly, by reasoning and proof, not by irrelevant emotional outbursts, and certainly not by populist summary justice and peer pressure.

(Don’t say I'm being unfair, again ;-)

A few short, rightful answers:
1. Adobe fonts are distributed by many companies, e.g. Monotype, Linotype, Agfa. Data is always identical. Like you can buy a Mercedes from the plant in Stuttgart, from your local dealer, a dealer in another city. It's always a Mercedes and it'll look just the same on a picture. Nothing false about distributing identical fonts from different sources.

2. It makes a hell of a difference to me whether i had been employed by a company or worked for them in a designer-client relationship. If someone who pretends to be diligent and detail-oriented alters my biography with one keystroke, i feel obliged to correct it. That has nothing to do with other issues.

3. There are many mistakes in the FontBook, which is inevitable with that amount of data. Some of them are human errors: we didn’t catch them or we left something out inadvertently. Some have to do with false data, late data or no data. There will be Errata pages as our readers help us collate omissions and other mistakes. Go to www.fontbook.com, where our corrections will be posted; some as pdf for download.

4. As has already been pointed out: the FontBook was out of date the minute we closed the database. And that was months before it was printed. We rely on foundries, friends and collaborators to supply new materials while we think about the next edition. Right now, we're all tired and proud that we managed to collate, edit, and print 1760 pages.

5. The only way to avoid making mistakes is not to make anything. Which obviously is what some people are very good at.

Erik — Thank you for sustaining the public debate and for your answers. Thank you also, for the wonderful job you've done with the FontBook. I ordered my copy last week and hope to receive it soon.

The task is like a phone book, you can never have it right because things change faster than it takes to get it printed, I would be happy to have a copy of FontBook with whatever flaws it has. I know full well that it will have ommissions and mistakes. Goodness knows I have been guilty of the same many times.
I just wish it were available already to the impatient rest of us who just like type! :-)

ChrisL

Again the overly cheery beside-the-pointness...

hhp

..as opposed to the overly world-wearyness...

edited.. nevermind.

Gil,

What is "The Archer Bus"?

ChrisL

If there is something like a “Berthold Gate” in the font industry, this should be dealt with appropriately, that means publicly, by reasoning and proof

I wish that could be done. But most of the people who could shed light on the matter – tell the facts, in other words – are either prevented to do so by legal constraints or by sheer fear of having legal actions taken against them. This has happened to a lot of us, and it has been both costly in time and money and nerve-racking. I for one will only talk about this in private, on a walk in a forest, away from cameras, microphones and other people.

Our friend Uli may have a bit of a persecution complex, but as far as the B-gate story is concerned, he has so far got away with more than most of us. That’s all i’m prepared to say in public.

Sorry for derailing this one, but since it's just a troll thread anyway...

"I wish that could be done. But most of the people who could shed light on the matter – tell the facts, in other words – are either prevented to do so by legal constraints or by sheer fear of having legal actions taken against them. This has happened to a lot of us, and it has been both costly in time and money and nerve-racking. I for one will only talk about this in private, on a walk in a forest, away from cameras, microphones and other people."

The fact that type experts like you are not even mentioning the subject is building the gate. Younger designers like myself have run into a lot of nasty stumbling blocks when trying to research Berthold; in no small part due to the vile treatment of experts–not to mention fonts–by the Hunts. I'm spending a good chunk of this week trying to read books in a language I don't know, in the Library of Congress, just to get through the obfuscation–it's the sort of thing that will just drive me to work with the knockoffs, or my pirate stuff, instead.

ChrisL, the fact that Herr Spiekermann has spoken in Typophile once more is a reason to rejoice :)

Personally, I think that anything that would help us work more efficiently and effectively with type (or not, because I often spend my time perusing the catalog, just because) gets my vote. If its collections are less conservative and more diverse, like FontBook, that's a definite plus.

Well,
I picked mine up in San Francisco. All I can say is I think it's great. Good job Erik and everyone at FSI.

The folks at FSI sf are great too.

jimmy

in no small part due to the vile treatment of experts–not to mention fonts–by the Hunts

I am under a court order restraining me from discussing the matter. But there have been threads on Typophile, and there is background material on other sites, notably on the one run by the person who started this one. I’m sure other people can point you there. I know that there is a search robot out there with my name on it as well as that of all the names registered by an impostor who falsely claims to be the successor to a certain foundry. As soon as I but mention any real names, I get a letter from a lawyer, Life’s too short for this type of crap.

I do not see, however, how buying from private sites could possibly help you clear things up. If anything, this issue is about legal threats and verbal violence, which are methods not normally associated with the business of making good type. Don’t help these people by giving up so quickly.

PS:

The knock-offs, in this case, are often more legal than the so-called real ones. It is a shame that I cannot talk about it, as I probably know more about the history than anybody else out here, having been associated in one way or another (except having been employed) by that foundry since 1964.

Hmm, so a lot of gray area does exist in the history of typeface, beyond simply calling it 'original' or 'knock-off', black or white.

In the end, it's all about the goodwill, the moral consciousness of the designer (and/or the company) to decide what to market and sell. The moral would also answer the question of what makes a revival a 'revival', and an original an 'original'.

Or we can simply wait for that walk in the forest :)

Oy...anyway, for all those interested in reading a little about the story I asked about it when I first started snooping around on Typophile. Here's the thread .

Erik, that walk in the forest sounds a bit scary. Anyone seen Miller's Crossing? Plus I'm pretty sure that Big Brother is watching all of us no matter where we are. :)

Erik Spiekermann:

> 1. Adobe fonts are distributed by many companies, e.g. Monotype, Linotype, Agfa. Data is always identical. Like you can buy a Mercedes from the plant in Stuttgart, from your local dealer, a dealer in another city.

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here. The header on page 54 of FontBook 2006 is

"Manufacturers (Hersteller)",

and this page 54 lists these "manufacturers" with respective abbreviations, e.g.

"FB = Font Bureau".

Now let's assume, a FontBook user interested in the font "Agency" by David Berlow on page 5 of the "Sans" section wants to know the "manufacturer" (= foundry) of this font. For this purpose, the user looks up the font "Agency" in the "Contents" section, where he - in this case, luckily - finds the equation

"Agency = FB".

because here the "manufacturer" of the font is correctly given. But this is often not the case, as has been exemplified in my first posting to this thread, so that the reader may read the equation

"Agency = M".

This is bewildering, because "M = Monotype" is not the "manufacturer" of the font Agency, but only one of many dealers, sellers or distributors of this font Agency, or - worst case - a foundry which is neither the manufacturer nor the distributor of the font Agency.

Exactly this happens in the "Contents" section with the Adobe fonts and also with many fonts by numerous other foundries, i.e. the "Contents" section often does not state the true "manufacturer", but instead a distributor or another company, which is not the true "manufacturer" (= true foundry).

The confusion of the FontBook readers could be remedied by renaming the header on page 54 from "Manufacturer" to "Dealer", but many users want to know the "manufacturer". And the true "manufacturer", e.g. Font Bureau, certainly also prefers to see the true manufacturer equation "Agency = FB" instead of the wrong manufacturer equation "Agency = M".

Uli,

You are discussing errors in the FontBook. This kind of thing is normal in publishing and it is expected that users will assist the publisher in correcting errors for future versions (as Erik has stated above). Can you simply note mistakes without concocting a conspiracy?

In the final analysis, nobody but you expects FontBook to be an objective reference work. It doesn't change the fact that it is a monumental work of information design and that very few foundries, much less independent parties, have undertaken to present so much information in such a compact and intelligent format.

Again I suggest: Since you seem deeply concerned with authenticity, objectivity, factual accuracy and full disclosure, why don't you produce your own objective, complete reference to all available digital fonts? The answer to this question is vital....

I contacted Fontshop in San Francisco to get a copy. They told me they wouldn't be available until November. How is it that many seem to have a copy already?

ChrisL

Hi Chris,

You can get the book from San Francisco. I think you pay a few dollars more to cover the fact that they were quick-shipped from Germany.

Jimmy

Uli

The FontBook team have probably received their "Adobe" fonts from Monotype - that's why they are marked as "Monotype" fonts. Monotype is the FontBook source of these "standard" fonts. They could have been supplied by Adobe, they could have been supplied by Linotype...

Note that most of the fonts available through Adobe are originally made by Monotype, Linotype and ITC, usually crosslicenced - for distribution purposes - between them.

So e.g. Frutiger - originally from Linotype - is often referred to as an "Adobe" font - even when it is distributed through Monotype.
Not too difficult, is it?
;-)

Jacob

> It is a shame that I cannot talk about it

Erik, publish it anonymously on a server in a country where legal
threats are moot. Do we have any willing Cuban members here? :-)
Seriously, somebody living in the right place please contact
Erik privately.

hhp

> Erik, publish it anonymously on a server
> in a country where legal threats are moot.

Hrant:

A non-disclosure agreement has nothing to do
with the country, where disclosure takes place.
So neither Cuba nor any similar country will do.

Uli

And why is it so important to include the company name? The designer's name is better and enough.

And why is it so important to include the company name? The designer’s name is better and enough.

No, it's not. Just compare the different manufacturer's versions of say Garamond, Futura, Walbaum or any other classic face and you'll see why.

Uli, think: An anonymous online article goes up hosted on a server in Cuba. What the f**k can any US company do about it?! Just don't host it in Guantanamo.

hhp

Thanks Jimmy!

ChrisL

>You can get the book from San Francisco.

Looks like it's listed at fontshop.de - but not at Amazon (including Amazon.de).

Maybe a boatload of books is sitting in San Francisco harbour awaiting customs and security check :-)

ChrisL

sii, as fas as i know, they dont have VAT on it, and selling it without VAT is only possible to other companies, not to a private person or something like that in germany. jürgen siebert of FS explained it on his fontblog, but i dont know the exact explanation anymore.

> Maybe a boatload of books is sitting in San Francisco harbour

My thread makes more people buy FontBook than any other promotion could have achieved :-)

Uli

Chris - Seems like there is a misunderstanding. The official US release is November, but we do have a bundle of expedited copies available for purchase now for $120. So you can get a FontBook delivered in North America today.

But Stewf, will it be autographed by you?

ChrisL