Fabricatorz is proud to announce a vastly overhauled Open Font Library. The new site is designed by Manufactura Independente, implemented by Brad Phillips, and utilizes Aiki Framework at it's core. All of these upgrades combine to make typographic processes fast and simple.

Have you ever hit a hurdle in your design phase, not had the money to pay for the font you wanted? Those days are over. With Open Font Library, new fonts are free of cost, easily redistributed, and can instantly be utilizied to achive your design goals. Now this doesn't just apply to those using typography to create print documents on your local machine. Open Font Library provides the functionality to produce engaging web documents by simply linking directly to the Open Font Library server and adding a code snippet to your web document.

For example, if you want to use News Cycle designed by Nathan Willis add the following code to the head of your html page:

Now you can use this font in your css file. Here is an example of a paragraph set in News Cycle regular:

p {
font-family: 'News Cycle';
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
}

In addition to the ease of font downloading and font linking, Open Font Library creates a community around typography. Font designers, contributers, and enthusiasts will all recieve feedback directly from the users. This benefits everyone in that the formerly mystical font creation workflow is outlined in the guidebook section. Learn about typography's rich history, how to create your own font, and remix your own in this comprehensive section.

Curation is also provided by active librarians who insure content is respectful and of the highest quality.

Thank you for using these new tools and please share with your friends. Updates will be streaming to Twitter and Facebook in addition to http://openfontlibrary.org, so you can follow updates in real time, regardless of where you spend your time online.

Help us get the word out on Open Font Library, and we'll see you soon!

San Francisco and Beijing, April 5, 2012 – Open Font Library, the online library of community-generated fonts that promotes font freedom and sharing, announces its latest version. Fabricatorz, a global open production company, relaunched Open Font Library in 2011 and have contributed to its ongoing development ever since. The latest iteration of the site features a fresh design by Manufactura Independente, a simple and elegant touch that better reflects the beauty of Open Font Library's collection of quality typefaces.

The Open Font Library's no-frills site allows guests to browse the entire catalogue, which at the time of writing boasts a collection of 116 font families, 168 releases (includes updated versions of font families) and 388 font files (total number of TrueType Font and OpenType Font files). Through a simple registration process, guests can then become members of Open Font Library where they are encouraged to share their own fonts or remix and download those already in the catalogue. Members also gain access to the Open Font Library community, a group dedicated to sharing type and promoting its creative iterations.

Fabricatorz developer Brad Phillips says the site has become more liberating with its latest release. “Getting fonts onto other sites is really easy now since every font page comes with @font-face tags—HTML and CSS example-code for easy embedding—so all members have to do is copy and paste the tags into their own websites and boom!—their sites have a new attractive typeface.”

The @font-face tag embedding process is another step in helping Open Font Library accelerate its growth and usefulness for type designers, developers and font enthusiasts. It also encourages others less familiar with the technicalities of fonts and their use in websites to experiment with this transparent plug-and-play process.

“We're really hoping to get different types of people using the site, not just type geeks,” said Phillips. “I'm not exactly a type fanatic myself, but I've noticed my interest in the history and aesthetics of type grow just from using the site. Instead of “checking out” type like you would books in a traditional library, hanging out “in the stacks,” as it were, has been more educational for me. The Open Font Library community also plays an educational role; it's helpful with learning more about fonts and open fonts in particular.”

All the fonts in the Open Font Library catalogue are licensed under free licenses, including the SIL Open Font License, Creative Commons Zero license, and GPLv3 with font exception license. Every font in the catalogue is freely downloadable, just as anyone is free to join and become a member.

About Open Font Library

The mission of the Open Font Library (http://openfontlibrary.org) is to promote your freedom as it relates to fonts. All of the typefaces contained in the library are available under a free license, which gives you the freedom to use, study, remix and share each and every font. The site is powered by the Aiki Framework (http://aikiframework.org), a powerful web framework for building network services using the AGPL license.

About Fabricatorz

Fabricatorz (http://fabricatorz.com) is an open global production company that makes successful projects from start to finish. We specialize in developing software using Aiki Framework (http://aikiframework.org), hardware using Qi Hardware (http://fabricatorz.com/projects/qi-hardware), and community-building around the philosophies of Sharism (http://sharism.org).

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For more information, please write everyone@openfontlibrary.org, or visit http://www.openfontlibrary.org/
http://www.fabricatorz.com
http://aikiframework.org.

Press Contact

Spencer Young

press@fabricatorz.com

+49 1573 7430013

Berlin

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Montreal, May 12, 2011 - At the 6th Libre Graphics Meeting 2011 in Montreal, the Open Font Library, the Open Font Library community and Fabricatorz launch an online library of fonts that all type designers and font enthusiasts may participate in. The goal of the Open Font Library is to offer great fonts, help designers share their work, accelerate the usage of the @font-face tag available in modern web browsers, and to help educate everyone about how to design and use fonts.

The Font Library website is under active development, with the mission to bring online a veritable library of fonts to be made available under free licenses, including the SIL Open Font License, Creative Commons Zero license, and the GPLv3 with font exception license.

Fabricatorz developer Christopher Adams led the development of the site on the company's Aiki Framework. "Today marks a crucial milestone in the lifetime of the Open Font Library, from its initial conception in 2006 to its finalized public release in 2011," said Adams. "Our goal for the Font Library is not only to assemble a large collection of fonts, but to highlight quality free fonts and help others get involved in making this the best public library of fonts."

The Open Font Library received sponsorship and direction from Dave Crossland. Other major contributors to the project include Alexandre Prokoudine, Ben Weiner, Ed Trager, Eric Schrijver, James Weiner, Jon Phillips, Nicolas Spalinger, and Robert Martinez, who developed the Open Font Library logo. Initial patrons to the project include Mozilla Foundation, River Valley Technologies, TeX Users Group and Yes Logic. The Font Library has also benefited tremendously from input by participants at the Libre Graphics Meeting 2011.

The Open Font Librarians and the Fabricatorz, the global open production company, are actively seeking sponsorship and contracts to support the development of the Open Font Library towards a 1.0 release by the end of 2011. With sponsorship, there are active plans to integrate version control support for fonts on the site, allow for direct editing of fonts on the site, identify incomplete font designs and actively provide solutions, and integrate social web features into the project. More advanced features like API support for uploading and downloading fonts become possible for each additional patron who offers their support.

"The Fabricatorz stand ready to help build the world's largest collection of fonts," said Fabricatorz and Open Clip Art Library founder, Jon Phillips. With your support, use of the Library's fonts, and spreading the news of the project, the Open Font LIbrary is certain to reach this goal."

About Open Font Library

The mission of the Open Font Library (http://openfontlibrary.org) is to promote your freedom as it relates to fonts. All of the typefaces contained in the library are available under a free license, which gives you the freedom to use, study, remix and share each and every font. The site is powered by the Aiki Framework (http://aikiframework.org), a powerful web framework for building network services using the AGPL license.

About Fabricatorz

The Fabricatorz (http://fabricatorz.com) is a "open" production company that makes successful projects from start to finish, including development and community management. We specialize in Free and Open Source Software, Creative Commons technology, growing on-line and off-line communities in San Francisco, China and the Arab World. Our core focus is in developing software using Aiki Framework, hardware using Qi Hardware, and community-building around the philosophies of Sharism.

For More Information

• http://openfontlibrary.org


• http://aikiframework.org


• http://fabricatorz.com

Press Contact

Christopher Adams
press@fabricatorz.com
+1.415.830.3884
San Francisco + China

Attachments

• PDF


• ODT