For most of the 500 or so years since printing began, typefaces were made out of cast metal. The com­pa­nies that pro­vid­ed them were called “found­ries” or, more specif­i­cally, “type foundries”.

Once computers ar­rived and of­f­set print­­ing re­placed let­ter­­press, type­­­faces were dig­i­tized and stored as com­put­er files. These files came to be called fonts — the word font e­volv­ing from an ear­li­er us­age mean­ing a col­lec­tion of one size only of the char­ac­ters mak­ing up a par­tic­u­lar type­face. Since the new dig­it­al files in­clud­ed all sizes of a type­face, the mean­ing was ad­just­ed slightly to fit, and thus the word “font” made a smooth tran­si­tion in­to the dig­it­al age.

For type­­­faces de­signed as a fam­i­ly with mul­ti­ple weights and vari­ants such as reg­u­lar, bold, i­tal­ic, me­di­um, small caps, con­densed, etc…, each mem­ber of the fam­i­ly is stored in it’s own file and is, on a technical level, a font in and of it­self.

Type­faces to­day are in­ex­tri­ca­bly bound to the font files used to de­fi­ne and dis­play them. The ver­y i­de­a of a type­face with­out a cor­re­spond­ing dig­it­al file is ob­so­lete. And so the words “type­­­face” and “font” have come to be used in­ter­change­ably. To those who would ar­gue that “font” refers to the dig­it­al file and “type­face” to the de­sign, I say fi­ne by me. But noth­ing much gets lost if the dis­tinc­tion isn’t made.

Foundries, No.

For the past month or so I’ve spent a good deal of time talk­ing and cor­re­spond­ing with type de­sign­ers and font ven­dors. One thing I’ve learn­ed is that there is no more a “font in­dus­try” than there is a “jazz in­dus­try”. Peo­ple get in­to it most­ly as a la­bor of love, and not a whole lot of mon­ey gets made. Few can make it work as a full-time oc­cu­pa­tion and need to mix in teach­ing and oth­er de­sign work to earn a liv­ing.

Now, as read­ers of this blog know, type de­sign­ers, web de­sign­ers, and brows­er mak­ers have got­ten in­to a bit of a tus­sle late­ly a­bout the li­cens­ing of fonts for use in web sites. In an oft-cited blog post on the sub­ject, ti­tled “Fuck The Foundries” au­thor Mark Pil­grim goes off on a bit of a rant about it.

Here’s a sample:

Seriously. Fuck them. They still think they’re in the business of shuffling little bits of metal around. You want to use a super-cool ultra-awesome totally-not-one-of-the-11-web-safe-fonts? Pick an open source font and get on with your life.

The cra­zy thing is, I could­n’t care less, ob­vious­ly, a­bout Mark’s use of the “F” word. I understand his anger and share in his frus­tra­tion. Yes, he’s quite wrong a­bout what busi­ness font mak­ers think they’re in but what re­al­ly bugs me is his use of the word “foundries” to cre­ate a false per­cep­tion to bol­ster his ar­gu­ment. It’s de­lib­er­ate rab­ble-​rous­ing and a dis­serv­ice to the read­ers of his blog.

Who are “The Foundries” of which he speaks? Well, who­ev­er they are, I don’t like the sound of them. A car­tel may­be? Def­i­nite­ly mon­o­lith­ic. Prob­a­bly mo­nop­o­lis­tic. And who would want to live in Pittsburgh, anyway?

You see, “type de­sign­ers” sounds kind of hu­man, and it’s a lot harder to say “Fuck You” to re­al peo­ple. But “The Foundries”, now, there’s a group you can safe­ly des­pise.

Some words can make the ev­o­lu­tion­ary cut and some just can’t. Un­like the word “font”, which nods to the past with­out bow­ing to it, the word “foundry” is for­ev­er a slave to its his­to­ry. The term “type foundry” is ar­cha­ic and right­ly de­serves to be thrown in the scrap-​heap as un­sal­vage­able. There are no type found­ries an­y­more, Mark. The peo­ple who make and mar­ket fonts have made the tran­si­tion from mol­ten met­al. In fact, some type de­sign­ers are al­so so­phis­ti­cat­ed pro­gram­mers and web de­sign­ers who could wrap your own skill-set a­round their lit­tle fin­gers. They certainly can mine.

If it seems remarkable that font producers might not feel good a­bout par­tic­i­pat­ing in and con­tri­but­ing to a sys­tem that en­cour­ages their work to be dis­trib­ut­ed with noth­ing in it for them in re­turn, so be it. But fictional “foun­dries” have got noth­ing to do with it.

In regards to typefaces, leave the word “foundry” to the history books, that’s where it be­longs.

Related Articles:

1. Typedia: A Font Resource In The Making
2. Web Fonts At TypeCon 2009
3. Web Font Players Converge At TypeCon 2009
4. An Interview With Kernest’s Garrick Van Buren
5. Extensis Brings Google Web Fonts Straight Into Photoshop