
How the Doves Type Was Nearly Lost - maxerickson
https://www.buzzfeed.com/hayleycampbell/when-doves-type
======
Glyptodon
I feel really conflicted about a typeface like this not being public domain.
It's true that Green has put a lot of work into making a modern digital
version. But he also didn't design or create the original and it's over 100
years old.

~~~
kps
Anyone can create a similar typeface from scans of Doves Press books, as Green
originally did.

~~~
zerocrates
And he said as much himself in an earlier discussion on HN:

"The name Doves Type® is copyrighted to protect my drawings. But if someone
wants to go ahead and do what I did and recreate the type from the original
printed sources there's nothing to stop them, as long as they do not use my
font data as a basis for their font. It took me 5 years, on-&-off, to reach
the stage where I was satisfied that I had captured the overall essence of the
original. Though one can never recreate the patina of a letterpress type – the
appearance of each glyph varies from word to word, line to line, page to page.
That's why I prefer to call my digital type a facsimile."

Trademark-copyright confusion aside, seems right on.

~~~
ars
> as long as they do not use my font data as a basis for their font

The law is not on his side.

You can't use the actual digital font file, but if you print the font, or even
just screenshot it you can reproduce it completely legally. You can even
automate the conversion if you are careful in how you do it.

A typeface can not be copyrighted:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces)

> Trademark-copyright confusion aside, seems right on.

That's not what the law is though. Typefaces simply can not be copyrighted.

As an aside I've always found it completely bizarre how of all the digital
media used on a web page, for some reasons fonts have copyright restrictions
built into them, but nothing else does.

~~~
0x0
A well made digital font file is a lot more than pictures or even vectors of
letters. There's a whole bunch of hinting and even a virtual machine with
opcodes for tweaking how letters appear at particular pixel sizes and in
combination with surrounding letters. A well made font file really is a
compiled software program with built-in assets that someone sat down and
developed and debugged, not unlike a full game or an app.

~~~
uryga
could you point me to some resources about the "virtual machine" you
mentioned? sounds very interesting.

~~~
0x0
Here's a random Google hit:
[http://home.kabelfoon.nl/~slam/fonts/tticomp/introduction.ht...](http://home.kabelfoon.nl/~slam/fonts/tticomp/introduction.html)

And another, with an opcode list: [https://github.com/janelia-
flyem/go/blob/master/freetype-go/...](https://github.com/janelia-
flyem/go/blob/master/freetype-go/freetype/truetype/opcodes.go)

And an example font program: [https://developer.apple.com/fonts/TrueType-
Reference-Manual/...](https://developer.apple.com/fonts/TrueType-Reference-
Manual/RM03/Chap3.html#font_program)

Notice the presence of "if" and "call" and "loop".

Before super highres retina type displays, properly hinted fonts made all the
difference. A naive vector rasterization might bulk up from a 1px to a 2px
line width completely inappropriately as font size increases. A properly
developed one would ensure pixel perfect rasterization at most font sizes,
even in the case of very lowres pixels.

The complexity of truetype is a source for many bugs, not least because some
operating system interpret the font virtual machine in kernel mode. Also, it
looks like the font code for a large amount of systems trace back to a common
ancestor.

This one is a very good read:

[https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.no/2015/07/one-font-
vulne...](https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.no/2015/07/one-font-
vulnerability-to-rule-them-all.html)

"For example, most TTF engines are based on Microsoft's original
implementation of the format, including Windows GDI (win32k.sys), Microsoft
GDI+, Microsoft DirectWrite, Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash. Likewise, most OTF
engines are based on Adobe's original implementation, including Microsoft GDI
(ATMFD.DLL), Microsoft DirectWrite, Microsoft Presentation Foundation and
Adobe Reader. As a direct outcome, any bugs present in the original
implementation that was later branched and included in multiple products were
likely propagated, and may affect various programs or operating systems. This
is of course an extremely frightful scenario, with a single 0-day
vulnerability (...)"

------
fredleblanc
Here seems to be the fruit of Robert Green's labor:
[http://www.typespec.co.uk/doves-type/](http://www.typespec.co.uk/doves-type/)

~~~
brazzledazzle
They want $40 per 10K views? Does anyone know if I'm reading the license
description correctly?

Related question: Do the licenses for desktop users only cover print works?

~~~
re
No, £40 for a perpetual license to use it as a web font on website with up to
10k average monthly views. And a desktop user could use the font to create
digital works like images and videos, just not ones that embed the font.

~~~
brazzledazzle
That makes a lot more sense. Thanks for clarifying.

------
laurentdc
I have nothing to add. I just wanted to that say when I read "Most Beautiful
Typeface" I thought it was going to be another boring post about Helvetica,
and it was not, and I'm really glad for that.

~~~
new_hackers
Funny, first thing that came to my mind was Comic Sans...

------
sp332
Some discussion from a year ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9951869](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9951869)
and three years ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6964013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6964013)

------
f_allwein
What a nice story... Here's a good book if you want to learn more about the
world of type setting: Just my Type by Simon Garfield.

[http://www.simongarfield.com/pages/books/just_my_type.htm](http://www.simongarfield.com/pages/books/just_my_type.htm)

~~~
cmiller1
Loved this book, it was a surprisingly entertaining and witty read for a book
about fonts.

------
a3n
Not a typographer ... It _looks_ nice, all the letters have elegant curves and
all ... But I personally find it hard to read.

~~~
haddr
I also wouldn't call the most beautiful, although beautiful it is.

~~~
megablast
You can't say that without saying what the most beautiful is?

------
AceJohnny2
The Economist originally covered the topic 3 years ago:

[http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-
specials/21591793-le...](http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-
specials/21591793-legendary-typeface-gets-second-life-fight-over-doves)

And here was the (little bit) of discussion here about it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6964013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6964013)

------
bleair
Looking at [http://www.typespec.co.uk/doves-
type/](http://www.typespec.co.uk/doves-type/) I see that if you use this
typeface on a webpage, then you have to pay-per-viewing of said page.

Is there a discussion for the arguments for and against pay-per-view when
using font? Have their been licensing schemes for typeset work where the
printer had to pay each time a person opened the book using said typeface?

~~~
terrywilcox
I think you may have misinterpreted the license. There's no pay-per-view.

From the description:

"It is also available in web font formats for self hosted websites (up to 10K
monthly pageviews on average)."

You buy a license for your website. Large websites (with more than 10k monthly
pageviews) need to contact them for a license.

~~~
radicalbyte
How do you know what the average page views will be when you buy it? How do
you measure a page view?

For a blog or newspaper it may be obvious, for web applications it can be very
hard to determine.

~~~
gnicholas
You might not know up front, for sure. I know when I load our website, I see a
"transferring data from hello.myfonts.net" in the status bar, which I guess
some sort of phone-home mechanism. If we go over the limit, I assume they'll
notify us.

------
Kinnard
The most beautiful Latin typeface? Do these hold a candle to semitic
calligraphy?

~~~
bbctol
Truly beautiful semitic calligraphy can't be captured by a typeface; this is a
different sort of aesthetic appeal.

------
benashford
Also an interesting Radio 4 programme on the same topic:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07lhh6z](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07lhh6z)

------
hprotagonist
heathens! computer modern uber alles!

------
tomjhill
Good old British eccentricity!

------
grendelt
Can't believe Buzzfeed didn't run with their click bait subheading: You won't
believe what happens next! -or- What happens next is incredible!

~~~
maxerickson
I had submitted it with _How The World’s Most Beautiful Typeface Was Nearly
Lost Forever_ which is pretty baity. I thought so at the time but nothing
better came to mind. The current title is a big improvement from small
changes.

(look at all the comments here that respond pretty narrowly to the
superlative)

------
xntrk
was expecting some kind of comic sans troll.

------
kingkawn
Only thing worse than a repost is the person commenting that it's a repost. Or
that was true til I posted this.

~~~
sctb
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12480957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12480957)
and marked it off-topic. From the FAQ:

> _Are reposts ok?_

> _If a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we kill
> reposts as duplicates. If not, a small number of reposts is ok._

------
oldmanjay
Is buzzfeed simply incapable of publishing without clickbait headlines? Are
there people who don't find it patronizing?

These questions plague me.

