Using FF Meta on Drumbeat.org
Ned Schwartz
The following is a bit long, so in brief:
*
*
*Does anyone have any objection to the Drumbeat.org website serving the font
FF Meta via css3 @font-face using the license that Mozilla owns for the
font?*
*
*
That may be a tough question to unpack, but if you are interested, read on:
I would love to update the typography on Drumbeat.org to use css3 @font-face
to provide a richer typographic experience then we are providing now using
generic web-safe fonts.
The Drumbeat site was initially designed with the font FF Meta as the
sans-serif font used in headings, navigation elements and various form
controls and callouts. Mozilla owns a license for FF Meta that allows for
embedding on Mozilla's websites and the plan was to use this resource to
embed FF Meta on Drumbeat.org.
FF Meta is the font used in the branding and logos/wordmarks of various
Mozilla products including the Mozilla foundation, Firefox, Thunderbird and
Drumbeat so it was a natural choice. FF Meta is a beautiful font and has a
lot of character. It is a versatile font and can be made to work as a clean,
serious font in some situations and a fun, upbeat font in others. This
malleability makes it a joy to work with.
However, FF Meta is a proprietary, commercial font owned by FontFont and
licensed under a closed commercial license. There are some people in the
Mozilla community that feel that we should not be using a non-open font in
Mozilla branding. I think this is a valid concern and have even begun the
search for a viable open alternative to FF Meta. Unfortunately, the
selection remains limited in the open-licensed font world and I have found
nothing of the high quality exhibited by FF Meta. This is just my own
speculation, but It is possible that Mozilla needs to contract a type
foundry to design a font for Mozilla branding, similar to the Open Handset
Alliance's contracting Ascender Corporation to create the excellent Droid
family of fonts [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_(font)].
Regardless, of the eventually resolution of Mozilla's branding as a whole,
my main point is that FF Meta is embedded in Mozilla at this point and it is
a significant undertaking to extract and replace it. In the mean time, the
Drumbeat website needs some typographic polish! So my proposal is that we go
ahead with FF Meta now, knowing that Mozilla may choose to rebrand down the
line with an open-license font. If/When that happens I will happily update
the stylesheet to swap in the new OS Font.
But I realize that licensing is very important to Mozilla, so I want to
throw this out there to see if anyone else has any solutions to the problem.
I want to move on this, so I am going to set a deadline of August 20th to
decide this. That should give people enough time to respond.
Thanks for your feedback.
Ned
Paul Osman
1) Consistency. What other Mozilla websites use FF Meta for anything
other than logos? It looks like the Firefox product page uses FF Meta
for the mozilla logo (an image) and Georgia and Verdana (both fairly
common) with serif as a fallback for the body copy. I don't want
drumbeat.org to be 'leading' in any category of branding. We should be
following suit with other (more established) sites in the Mozilla
universe. If Georgia / Verdana / Serif is good enough for them, why
isn't it for us?
2) Impact on open source developers. People without the font will see
something different if they are developing on their local machine,
wouldn't they?
3) Openness. I'm concerned about the optics / values we'd be promoting,
using a licensed font for more than just images on a site dedicated to
promoting the open web. There's a cognitive leap from using a type face
for images / logos and using it for web copy. Referring to concern # 1,
I'd need a fairly good reason why we can't get by with web safe or open
fonts. Plenty of organizations use one font for their logo and other
fonts for web copy.
Just my 2 cents (or more).
Cheers,
Paul
> _______________________________________________
> community-drumbeat mailing list
> community...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/community-drumbeat
--
Paul Osman
Senior Web Developer
Mozilla Foundation
http://www.mozilla.org
Atul Varma
> I have a few concerns:
>
> 1) Consistency. What other Mozilla websites use FF Meta for anything
> other than logos? It looks like the Firefox product page uses FF Meta
> for the mozilla logo (an image) and Georgia and Verdana (both fairly
> common) with serif as a fallback for the body copy. I don't want
> drumbeat.org to be 'leading' in any category of branding. We should be
> following suit with other (more established) sites in the Mozilla
> universe. If Georgia / Verdana / Serif is good enough for them, why
> isn't it for us?
using it for all mozillalabs.com content and for Mozilla presentation
templates and such. It's under a free license:
http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/museo.html
- Atul
Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C.
Looks like a great alternative to the FF Meta typography.
PS.- Hi :), I'm new to the list :P
Regards,
--
Pablo Olmos de Aguilera Corradini - @PaBLoX
http://www.glatelier.org/
http://www.mozillachile.org/
http://friendfeed.com/pablox/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/pablooda/
Linux User: #456971 - http://counter.li.org/
Paul Osman
> On 7/27/10 11:22 AM, Paul Osman wrote:
>> I have a few concerns:
>>
>> 1) Consistency. What other Mozilla websites use FF Meta for anything
>> other than logos? It looks like the Firefox product page uses FF Meta
>> for the mozilla logo (an image) and Georgia and Verdana (both fairly
>> common) with serif as a fallback for the body copy. I don't want
>> drumbeat.org to be 'leading' in any category of branding. We should be
>> following suit with other (more established) sites in the Mozilla
>> universe. If Georgia / Verdana / Serif is good enough for them, why
>> isn't it for us?
> If you're interested, Sean Martell is a big fan of MuseoSans and is
> using it for all mozillalabs.com content and for Mozilla presentation
> templates and such. It's under a free license:
>
> http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/museo.html
>
>
I love it. Using it on my blog now :)
I blind tested this with my partner (who used to be a typographer and
type designer!) and she mentioned that MuseoSans plays well when FF Meta
is used for a logo, so I'm cool with that :)
So in order to be consistent with Mozilla branding, shall we say FF Meta
for the logo (until Mozilla makes a change, if they do) and MuseoSans
for body text? I like that.
Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C.
Sounds fine for me :)
Ned Schwartz
using Scalable Inman Flash Replacement and Archer to using @font-face and
Museo.
I caution though that Museo is not strictly an open font:
Museo Sans font family comes in 10 fonts: 5 weights (100 300 500 700 900)
> with each an italic.
> *2 fonts are absolutely free* (500/500 italic) *8 are paid*.
I haven't actually read the license so I don't know what kind of copying and
redistribution provisions Museo Sans 500 has, but aside from that, what the
above means is that you can't even do *bold* in Museo Sans without
outgrowing the parameters of the free license. Well you can, if you accept
that it has to be fudged by the OS blimping the 500 weight out.
In this case, Museo Sans 500 is being given away like the proverbial first
hit that gets the junky hooked; with the expectation that a design project
will need more font weights and variants that will lead to the purchase of
the remaining fonts in the family.
I am open to trying Museo Sans out, but I'm not sure it resolves the issue
any better then FF Meta as far as license concerns go. I may try an
experiment with using Museo Sans 500 and some other body font (possibly the
Georgia that is already in use) and see how it goes. I am dubious – as it
stands, the serif font is used in many different weights on the drumbeat
site.
Maybe we need to decide what licensing criteria we have for a font.
There is a Web Task Force that is meeting on August 12th. Typography is
going to be one of the items on the agenda [
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Websites/Taskforce] I hope that this will lead to a
discussion amongst the designers of the various Mozilla web sites.
Ned
Ned Schwartz
language support. One of the immediate goals of the next version of Drumbeat
is to make sure it is easy to localize.
This OpenType font family offers supports CE languages and even esperanto.
> Besides ligatures, fractions and proportional/tabular lining and oldstyle
> figures MUSEO also has a 'case' feature for case sensative forms.
http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/museosans.html
This sounds promising. That page also has a full character map. Does anyone
with experience in localization know if this looks like a complete set?
Ned
Ned Schwartz
is available for free:
http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/delicious.html
It has a bit more 'character' then Meta or Museo Sans. This may clash with
the reality that drumbeat needs to be able to recede to let the character of
the projects emerge. There are also a few rough edges to my eye like the
swish of the lower case 'L'.
Also, though it is free, the license is not open (this license applies to
all free exljbris fonts):
*
*
*This agreement is *only* for the free fonts that can be downloaded
*directly* from my site*.
- This font is free for personal *and commercial* use
- The font file/software may be modified to suit design of system
requirements,
but *strictly* for your own (personal or commercial) use. You may *not* sell
or distribute it
- Embedding (in PDF's, Flash files and programs) is allowed
- You may use this font for Font-Face embedding, *but only* if you put a
link to www.exljbris.nl on your page and/or put this notice /* A font by
Jos Buivenga (exljbris) -> www.exljbris.com */ in your CSS file as near
as possible to the piece of code that declares the Font-Face embedding of
this font.
- This font may not be distributed or sold -not online nor on any media-
without my permission
- This font is and remains (even when modified) the intellectual property
of Jos Buivenga
- exljbris Font Foundry is not liable for any damage resulting from the
use of this font
http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/eula.html
Paul Osman
branding. We have to leverage the Mozilla brand, not fracture it.
With regard to the licensing of fonts, I'm okay with free as in beer if
we can't find anything with a truly open license that is in use
elsewhere in Mozilla.
Although this whole thread is starting to sound a bit like bike shedding
to be honest. Is typography really a pressing concern right now for the
Drumbeat website? I suggest any further discussion on this topic be
taken to the Mozilla Web Task Force for those interested.
Cheers,
Paul
> _______________________________________________
> community-drumbeat mailing list
> community...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/community-drumbeat
Dharmishta Rood
It's a collection of open-source fonts.
<3
- D
Ned Schwartz
(caps only, no punctuation etc) or don't have the right feeling for
drumbeat.
Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C.
> I really like Museo as well and recently updated an older design that was
> using Scalable Inman Flash Replacement and Archer to using @font-face and
> Museo.
> I caution though that Museo is not strictly an open font:
>>
>> Museo Sans font family comes in 10 fonts: 5 weights (100 300 500 700 900)
>> with each an italic.
That is what it says in the web page:
>> MUSEO font family has five weights (100 300 500 700 900).
>> 3 weights are absolutely free (300 500 700) and 2 are paid (100 900).
On 28 July 2010 12:38, Paul Osman <pa...@mozillafoundation.org> wrote:
> Although this whole thread is starting to sound a bit like bike shedding to
> be honest. Is typography really a pressing concern right now for the
> Drumbeat website? I suggest any further discussion on this topic be taken to
> the Mozilla Web Task Force for those interested.
You got a point :)
Ned Schwartz
bike shed who will? the poor thing will go unloved!
I am growing rather fond of PT Sans:
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/PT-Sans
<http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/PT-Sans>Though it is nowhere near as
refined as Meta, it has the kind of friendly character I am looking for, the
complete family of regular, italic, bold and bold italic are available and
it has a great license: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/license/PT-Sans
<http://www.fontsquirrel.com/license/PT-Sans>It also has a well-sized
character set - my character map in FEX lists 681 characters! (For
comparison, MetaBook-Roman has 261 characters, Georgia has 586 characters
and Arial has an astounding 3375 characters).
Oddly the 'caption' style of the font that features more open letterforms
that might work better at smaller sizes is missing the i and j characters :(
I suppose we will just have to avoid that one.
Ned
Ned Schwartz
I reset in PT Sans to A/B ... I am pretty happy with the way PT Sans holds
up!
Ned
Paul Osman
at Mozilla, which it doesn't sound like we're anywhere near consensus
on. You should suggest this one at the Web Task Force meeting.
Cheers,
Paul
> <mailto:n...@theinterned.net>> wrote:
> > I really like Museo as well and recently updated an older
> design that was
> > using Scalable Inman Flash Replacement and Archer to using
> @font-face and
> > Museo.
> > I caution though that Museo is not strictly an open font:
> >>
> >> Museo Sans font family comes in 10 fonts: 5 weights (100 300
> 500 700 900)
> >> with each an italic.
> >> 2 fonts are absolutely free (500/500 italic) 8 are paid.
>
> That is what it says in the web page:
>
> >> MUSEO font family has five weights (100 300 500 700 900).
> >> 3 weights are absolutely free (300 500 700) and 2 are paid
> (100 900).
>
> On 28 July 2010 12:38, Paul Osman <pa...@mozillafoundation.org
> <mailto:pa...@mozillafoundation.org>> wrote:
> > Although this whole thread is starting to sound a bit like
> bike shedding to
> > be honest. Is typography really a pressing concern right now
> for the
> > Drumbeat website? I suggest any further discussion on this
> topic be taken to
> > the Mozilla Web Task Force for those interested.
>
> You got a point :)
>
> Regards,
> --
> Pablo Olmos de Aguilera Corradini - @PaBLoX
> http://www.glatelier.org/
> http://www.mozillachile.org/
> http://friendfeed.com/pablox/
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/pablooda/
> Linux User: #456971 - http://counter.li.org/
>
>
>
Ned Schwartz
font. I may try it out on a branch of the drumbeat site ...
fwiw - what came out of David Boswell's initial Task Force presentation at
the Summit was that Mozilla should take a light touch when it comes to brand
cohesion; in a lot of ways the brand is that there is no brand ... people
seemed to feel that we need to embrace the bazaar.
I like the idea that there are various sets of brand suggestions that people
can pick and choose from and run off in there own direction with. Maybe PT
Sans will be part of these nudges?
Ned
Paul Osman
> fwiw - what came out of David Boswell's initial Task Force presentation
> at the Summit was that Mozilla should take a light touch when it comes
> to brand cohesion; in a lot of ways the brand is that there is no brand
> ... people seemed to feel that we need to embrace the bazaar.
I know, I was at that presentation :) And just to be clear, I'm not
suggesting we avoid straying where possible in an effort to enforce some
kind of cathedral model, I'm suggesting it because Drumbeat is a *very*
small site compared to mozilla.com, addons.mozilla.com,
support.mozilla.com, mozillalabs.com, builder.mozillalabs.com, etc.
Therefore, if Drumbeat can leverage the branding of the most popular
sites in the Mozilla universe, users immediately recognize us as part of
it... which is a big win when starting out.
-Paul
> I like the idea that there are various sets of brand suggestions that
> people can pick and choose from and run off in there own direction with.
> Maybe PT Sans will be part of these nudges?
>
> Ned
>
> On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Paul Osman <pa...@mozillafoundation.org
> <mailto:pa...@mozillafoundation.org>> wrote:
>
> This one meets most of my criteria, aside from consistency with
> others at Mozilla, which it doesn't sound like we're anywhere near
> consensus on. You should suggest this one at the Web Task Force meeting.
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
>
> On 10-07-29 11:40 AM, Ned Schwartz wrote:
>
> As a comparison, here is a home page feature box I recently did
> in Meta
> that I reset in PT Sans to A/B ... I am pretty happy with the way PT
> Sans holds up!
>
> Ned
>
> On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Ned Schwartz
> <n...@theinterned.net <mailto:n...@theinterned.net>
> <mailto:pa...@glatelier.org <mailto:pa...@glatelier.org>>> wrote:
>
> On 28 July 2010 12:16, Ned Schwartz <n...@theinterned.net
> <mailto:n...@theinterned.net>
> <mailto:n...@theinterned.net <mailto:n...@theinterned.net>>> wrote:
> > I really like Museo as well and recently updated an older
> design that was
> > using Scalable Inman Flash Replacement and Archer to using
> @font-face and
> > Museo.
> > I caution though that Museo is not strictly an open font:
> >>
> >> Museo Sans font family comes in 10 fonts: 5 weights (100 300
> 500 700 900)
> >> with each an italic.
> >> 2 fonts are absolutely free (500/500 italic) 8 are paid.
>
> That is what it says in the web page:
>
> >> MUSEO font family has five weights (100 300 500 700 900).
> >> 3 weights are absolutely free (300 500 700) and 2 are paid
> (100 900).
>
> On 28 July 2010 12:38, Paul Osman
> <pa...@mozillafoundation.org <mailto:pa...@mozillafoundation.org>
> <mailto:pa...@mozillafoundation.org
Andy Chung
> On 10-07-29 03:41 PM, Ned Schwartz wrote:
>
> > fwiw - what came out of David Boswell's initial Task Force presentation
> > at the Summit was that Mozilla should take a light touch when it comes
> > to brand cohesion; in a lot of ways the brand is that there is no brand
> > ... people seemed to feel that we need to embrace the bazaar.
>
> I know, I was at that presentation :) And just to be clear, I'm not
> suggesting we avoid straying where possible in an effort to enforce some
> kind of cathedral model, I'm suggesting it because Drumbeat is a *very*
> small site compared to mozilla.com, addons.mozilla.com,
> support.mozilla.com, mozillalabs.com, builder.mozillalabs.com, etc.
> Therefore, if Drumbeat can leverage the branding of the most popular
> sites in the Mozilla universe, users immediately recognize us as part of
> it... which is a big win when starting out.
>
> -Paul
>
>
>
>
>
> > I like the idea that there are various sets of brand suggestions that
> > people can pick and choose from and run off in there own direction with.
> > Maybe PT Sans will be part of these nudges?
>
> > Ned
>
> > <mailto:p...@mozillafoundation.org
> > <mailto:p...@mozillafoundation.org>>> wrote:
> > > Although this whole thread is starting to sound a bit like
> > bike shedding to
> > > be honest. Is typography really a pressing concern right now
> > for the
> > > Drumbeat website? I suggest any further discussion on this
> > topic be taken to
> > > the Mozilla Web Task Force for those interested.
>
> > You got a point :)
>
> > Regards,
> > --
> > Pablo Olmos de Aguilera Corradini - @PaBLoX
> > http://www.glatelier.org/
> > http://www.mozillachile.org/
> > http://friendfeed.com/pablox/
> > http://www.linkedin.com/in/pablooda/
>
> > --
> > Paul Osman
> > Senior Web Developer
> > Mozilla Foundation
> > http://www.mozilla.org
>
> --
> Paul Osman
> Senior Web Developer
> Mozilla Foundationhttp://www.mozilla.org
Sorry for jumping in on the discussion, but just thought I would throw
in my two cents. Personally I find Museo to have far too strong a
personality to be considered for a text-face for all of Mozilla's body
text. In my opinion a more serious typeface should be used to allow
the content to stand out, and to give the design more longevity (I'm
afraid Museo is falling victim to a certain glossy web aesthetic in
the same way Bello Pro has). I like the idea of commissioning a
typeface in the same way Google commissioned the Droid series -
recently iA commissioned Blue Monday to create an iPad specific
typeface (or modified version for the iPad) that I think worked out
very well.
http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/writer-for-ipad/
I think it's also important to take a look outside the realm of open
source type to get an idea of what to look for, even though these
typefaces may not align with our open-source values. Three sans-serifs
that immediately come to mind as standout are Akkurat, National, and
Whitney.
http://www.lineto.com/The+Fonts/Font+Categories/Text+Fonts/Akkurat/
http://www.vllg.com/Klim/National#panel=poster
http://typography.com/fonts/font_overview.php?productLineID=100026