Type in Use: Wallpaper*

I have some rubdown type of Le Corbusier that is not terribly old and I have a general question about copyright and ownership...

Do you think that the designers of the redesign of Le Corbusier asked Letraset if they could publish a digital version of it? Hell, did Letraset even pay Corbusier to publish it?

Because they made a "carefully modern re-interpretation" is it no longer the original owners work?

Just curious what people think...

On examining each of the Lineto typefaces I find IP questions irrepressible.*

Hrant where are you? Your thoughts on this one are bound to be insightful.

While they are not my slice of cake, the designs are of a high technical standard, focusing almost exclusively on industrial subjects, yet conveniently, most are derived from existing sources; car license plates, airport signage, typewriters, and video games/displays. No serious type afficionado (or designer) can browse the Lineto site without at least wondering how many were re-interpreted with permission from the original designers or copyright holders.

Liquid crystal displays (real ones) conform to practical demands made on them as industrial design (can only be designed in a limited number of practical iterations), and on that basis may reasonably be considered public domain; much ingenuity, problem-solving and original design work are needed to make an equivalent as a scalable type outline, so I'll give them that one.

The Swiss doorbell type (gravur?) is derrived from a lettering style so ubiquitous and standardised that the glyphs would appear to belong to the wider population of Switzerland, making that style public domain too. No big IP issue there.

But the license plate fonts seem to occupy less defined territory. In particular FE Engshrift; the original was a purpose-built product of the German government, an asymmetric type intended to make licence plates difficult to modify or fake outright. Lineto's designers admit to defeating this by making their own 'me too' font and releasing it very soon after the original was introduced. It could be argued that this act is tantamount to aiding and abetting criminals.

As an artist I try to subvert social conventions in daily life and my work, but in my mind there is a very clear difference between agitating to provoke social change for the greater good, and blatant disregard (contempt?) for authority and its mechanisms designed to benefit and protect us all.

*Readers should know that I am diligent in pursuing ethical issues among type designers, with a particular interest in plagiarism and derivative works. I regularly write to free archive sites to deter the distribution of pirated comercial fonts and report font piracy to the copyright holders whose IP and revenues are being violated. For the past 18 months I have kept an unbroken watch over the Larabie Fonts Forum, still going strong and loving it. (Caution: visit and read, but don't try to talk to the clowns who post there).

James, I'm not a fontcop, and I think you shouldn't be either.

On the other hand (Also?), from a moral -and creative- standpoint, I don't like revivals, including ones based on things that aren't dead...

hhp

i love them.

haha

Beautiful stuff Stephen. Thanks for the candy.

>James, I'm not a fontcop, and I think you shouldn't be either

Why not? I am undecided. I know I talk too much, and my diplomacy skills are terrible at times; this is motivated by anger at the massive extent of font piracy and the attitude of those responsible.

Hrant, do you think vigilanti action is a good way of dealing with it or not? If not, can you think of more effective strategies?

> Why not?

Because it does more harm than good, especially to you.

Vigilante, no way. Guerilla, sure.

hhp

please allow us to give you the full story on the two 'le corbusier' fonts.

the typeface was derived from two old sets of zinc stencils, bought at an old artist's supply shop in zurich many years ago. it's the same set of stencils that the famous swiss architect le corbusier used on some of his plans and sketches. the stencil letters were scanned, and then redrawn one by one. the character set was then extended to give a full and complete character set, including all accents, special characters, currency glyphs, etc. etc.

when we started the design on this typeface, we did some research on the provenance of the design. it seems it was designed by some unknown person at the beginning of the century. research at the swiss architectural school ETH in zürich, home of one of the most prominent experts on le corbusier, concluded that le corbusier was NOT the designer of this typeface, but - very much in tune with his design ethic - typically used everyday tools for use in his design and architectural work, such as this standard stencil set which was widely used and available in hardware shops etc.

we called it 'le corbusier' as to pay hommage to this great architect and designer, who happens to be swiss like ourselves - it's part of our history, and we have a connection to it.

please note that this typeface has got nothing to do at all with the letraset version, which, by the way, only exists in upper case, and has a soft, round, plastic-like feel. like many letraset fonts, it only offers a very basic set of characters. we went through the trouble to redraw and publish the le corbusier fonts in order to offer this classic design in both upper AND lower cases, as well as in condensed form, and to preserve this beautiful design which is disappearing fast, and which was not available in digital form before. it may be no surprise to you that the artist's supply shop where one of our designers bought the stencil sets has since gone out of business.

of course we did not ask letraset, as our designs have got nothing to do with letraset at all. please bear in mind that going through the trouble to redraw these fonts and extend them to a full character set is a very labourious and time-consuming process. we certainly feel strongly that we have not ripped anyone off, and that these fonts are a genuinely new and valid offering to any graphic designer working with type today.

My appologies to Lisa and any one else I may have upset. I fully realise the difficulty of an observer "knowing" any truth at all when the actual circumstances of a font's origin are unknown.

Even though if I do prefer original designs to revivals and the like, the neat finish of the Lineto faces (Storno is the sweetest) has grown on me; the innovative geometric detail in Softcore and Supermax makes a blessed relief from conventional, plodding type. Normetica and Autoscape are super peachy. And Autoscape's A is the most interesting I've seen in months, and Curier Sans shines on its own, irrespective of where it evolved from.

Lisa, is there any possibility of a proportional glyph Courier Sans? I imagine it would make a stunning text face.

i would argue that almost any typeface is an interpretation of a common theme, thus - when successful - being at the same time original AND conventional.

also, i wouldn't classify most typefaces on the lineto site as 'revival' typefaces. in some cases, the idea of 'typographic preservation' has played a major role (e.g. typefaces like 'brauer'), but we are not a revival or retro label.

courier sans IS a proportional text face, and is doing well as such - the designer is currently working on a monospaced version of the three weights.

strange though.

i have never considered this face to be swiss at all.

i thought it was the standard stencil face used in france.

am i wrong?

i've seen it used by many modernist european architects and furniture designers, not just corbu-
eileen gray, ernö goldfinger etc.

does anyone know who may have started this trend?

lastly - i notice quite a difference between this swiss version, and the french one.

notice the bottom left of the 2, comes to a point, and the thinner bits are, um, thinner.

lisa thanks for all your hard work on your revival. i know many people who admire it.

I'm sorry no one has answered Norm's questions. A correction: Nico Schweizer is responsible for Le Corbusier, not Lisa Knoll.

I am not sure when the Corbu font used in the Wallpaper spread was created, but I suspect my version of Corbu stencil created in 1992 predates this work. It has been available since1992 through several of the usual font channels, and now only through Phils Fonts under the name Modular Stencil. I don't think letraset had any claim to the design as the metal stencils distributed by Charette in the US predate the rubdown letters. My version also includes a full upper and lower case and extended international character set, but I worked without the stencil lowercase as a guide creating the lowercase completely by interpretation of the uppercase characters. I used several serif faces, particularly Bodoni which is very similar in spirit, as a guide. My uppercase were created by simply looking at examples and drawing in fontographer - no scanning involved.

I understand the different feelings about IP and issues raised above. I think about it this way. I created the face to use in my own work as an architect, and because there was nothing available. I have sold copies over the years, but I assure you that it has not amounted to the amount of time and effort that went into creating the face. The people who have found the face and purchased it were very happy to have located it and to be able to reintroduce the face into their work, and many expressed gratitude for simply having it available. Nobody has ever told me that they thought I was ripping off somebody elses IP. I tend to think that I have taken a small step to keep a great face alive, and I have gotten some small compensation for the effort. I think if more people did that we might stand to loose less of our heritage in type. You have to understand that this is an esoteric typeface that has a lot of meaning to a very small audience. This is just the kind of thing that disappears if nobody trys to preserve it in new media. It is not a case of somebody ripping off a popular face, and selling it in a bundle, or giving it a different name, or all the usual ways that type gets ripped off.

you can look at samples of my version.

looking for letraset sheets any condition. will pay!!!!!!

You mean original Letraset, or any brand dry-transfer lettering sheets? And how much per sheet, for what fonts?

hhp

The stencils are a traditional zinc style used to label French wine crates. I own several sets, bought in the vintner's section in the basement of the Bazaar de L'Hotel de Ville (Sort of like Sears, Saks, and Home Depot rolled into one) in Paris in the mid '70s. (I looked for them again several years ago, and they were gone. But I would bet that a vintner's specialty store would have them.) At the time I was buying them, only upper case was available (I think Nico may be responsible for the lower case -- easily enough extrapolated from the UC). The metal stencils had little baseline notches on the sides so you could snap a chalkline across a crate and align it easily using the notches -- very simple and elegant. As noted above, Corbu used them just because he liked them and they matched his "brutalist chic", non?