
Hellvetica.ttf – Kern in Hell - cyanbane
https://hellveticafont.com/
======
huac
Very similar to smelvetica
([https://github.com/tholman/smelvetica](https://github.com/tholman/smelvetica))
which did get takedown notices from Monotype.

~~~
jjoonathan
Ew.

I don't blame tholman for complying with the takedown, but my layman's
understanding is that Monotype had no legal grounds for their complaint
because parody is protected -- they were just using legal language to
intimidate him into complying. Does that jibe with others' understanding of
the law?

~~~
deftturtle
You are correct, and I reached out to the author about fighting their bogus
claims. He wasn’t interested, but this was a while ago. Perhaps if this new
parody font fights them, he’d be willing to do the same for smelvetica

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trothamel
I never thought I'd get to see if a font could be fair use due to the parody
exemption - but I'd suspect there would be a good chance that this is the
case.

~~~
jchw
In the US, typefaces themselves are not subject to copyright law (though that
doesn’t mean ‘font piracy’ is legal - the ‘computer code’ backing a font is
still copyrightable - but you could presumably extract the outlines and
replicate a font exactly without running afoul of U.S. copyright law.)
(disclaimer: IANAL)

~~~
planteen
A rasterized (imaged) font is not copyright-able. However the vector control
points are considered a creative work and therefore subject to copyright. This
was established in Adobe v. Southern Software:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Systems,_Inc._v._Souther...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Systems,_Inc._v._Southern_Software,_Inc).

So even stripping out the hinting and OTF shaping "computer code" would still
presumably leave you in violation of a font copyright.

~~~
smrq
What a bizarre ruling -- like saying that a parabola is not copyrightable, but
three points defining a parabola are (because one could express the same
parabola using many combinations of three points).

Surely, then, one could write a program to generate a copyright-free copy of a
font by selecting different control points that yield the same curves. Or
would the computer be the copyright-holder, as it selected those points?

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Filligree
> Surely, then, one could write a program to generate a copyright-free copy of
> a font by selecting different control points that yield the same curves. Or
> would the computer be the copyright-holder, as it selected those points?

The new three points would be derived from the old ones; hence it's still a
derived work, and still falls under the old copyright. Your bits have the
wrong color.[1]

1: [https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23](https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23)

~~~
ars
Only if it's directly derived from the TTF file itself.

But if you rasterized the font (and as a specific representation of the front,
it no longer has a copyright), and then had a computer generate curves from
that, you'd be fine.

But from my understanding the hard part is creating the file that does a good
job at every different font size. Creating a font for just 1 size is
relatively easy.

So your computer would be doing the easy part, not the valuable part.

~~~
fwip
I have a hard time imagining a judge taking a sympathetic ear to this defense.
Do you happen to know if there's relevant existing case law on this subject
that you could point me to?

~~~
ars
I don't have case law, but there are tons of fonts that explicitly say they
are based on a copyrighted one:

* libre baskerville * Liberation Mono is a sans-serif font metrically equivalent to Courier New * Liberation Serif is metrically equivalent to Times New Roman.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts)

Arial is based on Helvetica and we created specifically because of copyright
on Helvetica.

~~~
yellowapple
"Metrically equivalent" just means they take up the same amount of space when
typeset (i.e. if you take a document in Times New Roman and change the font to
Liberation Serif, nothing should move around). As you can see in the case of
Courier New v. Liberation Mono, the two fonts can be very different visually
while still being metrically equivalent.

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oflannabhra
I'm a bit disappointed that it doesn't include an "rn" = "m" kerning
mistake... my favorite and one that is already kind of an issue in Helvetica
(and also can happen in the word "kern" itself, ie "kern" = "kem")

~~~
joefkelley
"keming" is the only one-word joke I know of.

Wondering if anyone is aware of any others.

~~~
ryanmcbride
The kerning subreddit is r/keming and it gives me a chuckle each time.

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coconutrandom
If anyone is interested in automating it, I wrote up quick howto in Python a
few days ago.
[https://readevalprint.com/Schmelvetica.html](https://readevalprint.com/Schmelvetica.html)

~~~
app4soft
Why fonts extension is .TTC?

    
    
        ORIGINAL_FONT_PATH = "path/to/Helvetica.ttc"
        GLORIOUS_FONT_PATH = "path/to/Schmelvetica.ttc"

~~~
danaliv
A TTC is a TrueType Collection. Multiple fonts in one file. Instead of having
separate files for every size, weight, etc. they’re combined into one. The
major advantage is the ability to share glyphs between fonts instead of
duplicating information in each file.

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JoshTriplett
This is awesome.

I'm just sad that this doesn't kern r and n towards each other, to produce the
classic misread "keming".

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ThePadawan
Title should read .ttf, right?

Or am I being Mandela'd.

~~~
km3k
Yeah it's a typo. If you click through to the website, the titlebar says
Hellvetica.ttf.

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fabioborellini
I don't see anything odd there. I am using Linux.

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jonathankoren
I one time saw a sign with intentionally bad kerning in the design department
at work that said something like, "This sign makes designers very angry."

I was admiring the joke, when the the VP of design saw me smiling at it, and
said, "Thank you! You have no idea how many people look at that sign and just
don't get it."

~~~
ashton314
Lol. Did he offer you a job at that point? Sounds kind of like a puzzle to
find designers for hire.

~~~
stjohnswarts
It turns out that jonathankoren is the CEO, and. now. you. know. . . . the
rest of the story

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semiotagonal
It kinda reminds me of the Bayeux Tapestry, where the letters have to be
spaced around people's heads.

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_Codemonkeyism
Reminds me of a book I've once had "End of Print".

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ObscureScience
That how my linux terminals, ex. st or alacritty look when I type the wrong
string when specifying a font in the configs ;)

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Sohcahtoa82
Thanks I hate it.

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ArtifTh
This also need to have somehow broken hinting instructions so it would render
blurry with rainbow edges on a screen.

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bigred100
I don’t understand this. Can someone explain the typing joke to me?

~~~
haste410
Kerning is the amount of spacing between letters. Type with poorly applied
kerning is a long standing joke as a way to annoy a designer. Font files can
have the amount of kerning between letter pairs built in. This font is
Helvetica with very poor kerning built in. It's "hell" for people who care
about kerning.

~~~
bigred100
Thanks.

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bluehazed
I've never had a font make me laugh so hard.

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aj7
I’d just as soon can my own shit.

