Re: fontname name for Caslon Book BE?

[Rebecca and Rowland <rebecca@astrid.u-net.com>]

>At 10:20 PM 98/02/02 +0000, Rebecca and Rowland wrote:
>
>>Surely the firm that produces the fount is the `foundry', no matter who
>>designed the thing originally?  The Postscript Type 1 fount files claim
>>that they are copyright Adobe; I take this to mean that Adobe wrote and
>>produces these fount programs, which means (as far as I can tell) that
>>Adobe must be classed as the `foundry'.
>
>Yes, based on outlines created at Berthold

So what you're seem to be saying is that the designer of a fount should be
called the foundry?  Strange.

>>If I'm wrong, can you explain what you mean by `foundry'?
>
>Well, there are the people who create the shapes of the characters,
>there are the people who turn that into a useable font program.
>and there are people who market licenses to those programs.
>Sometimes these are the same people, but often not.  I don't
>know exactly how you want to refer to these.  It gets even more
>confusing, when AGFA offers most of the Adobe library and Adobe
>offers much of the Linotype library or whatever...

That's why I think the term `foundry' is inapplicable to the modern
business of designing, creating, and selling founts.

>>btw, is there a better way of referring to firms that design and sell
>>electronic fount?  The word `foundry' is appropriate if they are actually
>>working in metal, but it's a bit silly otherwise.  I've bought founts from
>>a foundry, but I doubt anyone else on this list has.
>
>Language works this way.  We carry along words that are convenient
>even when there original etemology no longer fits.

My point is that the term `fount foundry' is no longer convenient - it
doesn't mean anything in particular these days, so it ought to be dropped.
And as you can probably tell from my spelling, I'm not one to change
language unless it's essential.

>  Shall we then drop
>the term `font' also?

No - because the word `fount' adapts itself nicely to the new forms we can
get founts in.  The problem with the word `foundry' is that it refers to a
place that makes things out of molten metal - that is, the firm that
creates the actual lumps of metal you print with; or, in the case of
hot-metal typesetting, the firm that produces the lumps of metal that *you*
use to create the lumps of metal you print with.  The fount foundry was not
always the entity that designed the fount.

These days, the nearest equivalent to a foundry in the old sense is the
firm that does what?  Creates the CD-ROMs?  No - because you don't need a
CD-ROM.  Designs the fount?  No - that's just the designer.  Creates the
fount program?  No - that's done by a program under the control of the
designer.  Clearly, `foundry' when applied to founts no longer has a useful
meaning.

It's meaningful to talk about a fount designer, or the licenser of a
design.  You can also talk about a fount vendor, and even the firm that
pressed the CD-ROMs if you want to.  There is no modern analogue to a
old-style fount foundry, although there still *are* a small number of fount
foundries (Adana, for example).

Rowland.