Dinc Becomes Snap

Are these meant to be original fonts?

On this page http://www.snapfonts.com/fonts3.html alone I can see Beguiat Frisky renamed "Metropolitan", House Industries' "Strike!" cunningly disguised as "Woody", and "ITC Anna" masquerading as "Cruiser". Amongst others. (Say, isn't that Brush Script?)

Following a couple of links, I see that I can purchase all of these fonts, despite the egregious flouting of copyright laws.

Congratulations to Todd Dominey for uncovering a typographic evil-doer. I hope that measures are taken to shut down SnapFonts' operations post-haste.

Best regards,
chester

They seem to have a good grasp of the import, transformation and weight-change functions in Fontographer (and little else).

Hey--it says these are limited edition sets, available only by email! Better buy some before they "run out!"

This is very uncool. This Snapfonts thing contains a boatload of crude knockoffs of commercial fonts--Murray Hill, Coronet, TF Avian, and others.

This is not what typographi.ca is for.

:-(

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

During this outfit's years as 'Dinc!' I was amazed at the near-complete lack of original fonts. And worse - the crass, unkind tranformations of fonts that were just fine the way they were. The site always had a general air of phoniness, and evidently Dianne DiPiaza was more interested in icons of popular music than type design.

Now its called Snapfonts. The content is much the same, only the names have changed.. .and the page backgrounds have gotten a lot blacker.

Plagiarism degrades type design by eroding the uniqueness of established fonts given the knockoff treatment. This reflects badly on designers of original fonts and the proffesional type industry as a whole. Typographi.ca contributors don't need to be told this; I'm only going thru the motions for the enlightenment of the Snapfonts' proprieters.

>egregious flouting of copyright laws
>boatload of crude knockoffs of commercial fonts

Chester, John, I'm with you in principal, but how certain are we these reworks are unauthorized? A year ago I meant to write to Dianne to ask what the situation was. A dumb question really, which is probably why I never wrote that email.

Will a representative from Snapfonts come here and clarify the legitemacy of their work, or will they choose to make no comment?

Please note, all your information regarding Snapfonts is incorrect. Firstly, it has nothing to do with Diane DiPiazza. She is the owner of the free font site, dincTYPE. Snapfonts is owned by me, Dr. Jayne Moschella. I have acquired the old dinc! commercial library and I have acquired a number of new fonts by other designers. I can assure you, Snapfonts has never remade, remixed a font ever. Please remember typefaces cannot be copyrighted. If a designer is influenced by a particular typeface, they are within their legal rights to redraw the typeface. Since you are all so knowledgeable, take note that House Industries did not originate the typeface which they call Strike. That typeface is has been around for years and years and years. Similarly, many many type companies have their own versions of famous typefaces of the past. Are they authorized? I doubt it. Did Font Bureau get authorization from anyone to release STEREO which anyone can see in Dan Solo's reference book, exactly looking like Font Bureau's version. This is a remake of a old typeface I'm sure. Snapfonts is not in business to design knockoff fonts, it's in the business of designing original typefaces and reviving various typefaces which we are influenced by. Please be assured, Snapfonts is not a type company that opens up a font in fontographer and slaps a new name on it. We owe a lot to Diane DiPiazza for her typefaces which she worked on for over five years to create the type library which was dincTYPE. We are now indebted to our new staff which is designing original typefaces and reviving typefaces which they are inspired by and admire into new versions which they consider the highest form of flattery. You are all being very hard on Diane DiPiazza here......gets your facts straight. Diane has nothing to do with Snapfonts. If you want to contact Diane, visit her at dincTYPE, where she has always been and is now graciously designing only free fonts. If you don't like free fonts, don't visit. Snapfonts stands behind our work. If you look at any major type catalog, I do believe you will see revivals of other designer's typefaces. The person who mentions House Industries makes me laugh. How many revivals do they have? If you continue on this thread, Snapfonts will contact the ISP of this site and remind them that trashing a company in print is libel. We don't appreciate it and we will do everything in our power to protect our library and our image. Snapfonts is trying to produce high quality typefaces for reasonable prices to the public and provides free typefaces to those who cannot afford to purchase typefaces. To Chester at Thirstype, I have to say, have you never seen they typeface Strike before House Industries put it out? I suggest a lesson in typography might be in order. This font has been everywhere long before House Industries discovered it. As a matter of fact, go to Font Diner and you'll see it there too, in a circle, probably before House Industries revived it. Also, search the web. It's been everywhere under every conceivable name for at least 10 years as a free font. Because we revived it with a full international character set, we're plagiarists?????? FYI, one of our designers is an automobile sign painter. He paints by hand, did he do our brush stroke faces? Yes he did. He drew them, we digitized them. They don't belong to anyone, they belong to the world. As a matter of fact, our sign painter told me the brush stroke was the first type style he ever learned, the first type any hand type painter learns. It is not the most unusual typeface in the world. I am truly insulted to be defending myself and noting the origin of each of our typefaces and revivals. Cruiser, in fact, was hand drawn by our sign painter as well as it is the typeface on my car, the PT Cruiser. He did that face as a gift for my new car. Is Snapfonts within their right to digitize it? Yes we are. Just as Mark Simonson was within his rights to use his influences to design most of his typefaces, so is anybody else. Finally, James I find you quite crass. if you don't like Snapfonts, it's well within your rights not to go to the site. However, I am not here to defend Diane DiPiazza's original typefaces, which they all are, if you found them crass and unoriginal, that's your prerogative. You didn't have to buy them. Again, Diane DiPiazza is not the force behind Snapfonts. This is erroneous and libelous. She has no interest in Snapfonts, in its design, it's typography, or anything else. I take comfort in the fact that most of our visitors come away happy and write to say so.
I am here to let you all know that I own Snapfonts, not Diane DiPiazza. And that our designers have never remade a typeface and after checking with them, they are not influcenced by Murray Hill, Coronet, or any other typeface that has been remade so many times it's in hundreds of type libraries.

I'm sorry you all find Snapfonts so distasteful. The ironic thing is that we acquired the dincTYPE library due to popular demand. They had many many fans. With Snapfonts, we are aiming to take things one step further and to offer more, and less expensive typefaces for those who need them. For those of you who don't, please refrain from terms like plagiarism etc. These are libelous and hurtful and we are truly offended.

Once again, Diane DiPiazza is not Snapfonts. It is entirely owned and operated by Dr. Jayne Moschella.

Diane DiPiazza can be found at dincTYPE, where she's always been.

Thanks for your kindness. Designers are a swell bunch. And they sure like free fonts.

"If you continue on this thread, Snapfonts will contact the ISP of this site and remind them that trashing a company in print is libel. We don’t appreciate it and we will do everything in our power to protect our library and our image."

Are you fucking serious? I wasnt about to post anything regarding the originality or even usability nightmare that is your "Snap Fonts". Until I see this, what a joke, if your intetion was to defend you already seemingly tarnished "company image", I think you only shot yourself in the foot. Was this an indirect threat of leagal action? For what practicing freedom of speach in exposing your lack of creativity?

give me a break.

Sir. Hildebrant

Ms. Moschella -- I assumed Snapfonts was the same outfit as dincTYPE, so I edited Amanda's article to read that. My mistake. The article has been corrected.

No hard feelings, Amanda... I don't expect everyone here to recognize a given commercial design on sight, or to go looking for them in every site they visit. There are what, 40000 commercial designs out there now and counting?

The thing that annoys me is that a lot of these free font sites, for whatever reason, somehow manage to knock off at least one commercial design, either directly or through some series of filters. And half the time it's unnecessary cos the sites' original designs could often stand on their own, at least if the time devoted to autotracing or hand-tracing the knockoffs were instead put into cleaning up the originals and filling out character slots and features. Free fonts can be done well.

Whether it's technically legal in a given country to knock off someone else's design does not mean I have to like it, though.

Coronet was designed by Robert Hunter Middleton for Ludlow in 1937. TF Avian is sold by Treacyfaces.

Sorry, but Suffragette looks like Coronet to me.

This misogynistic thread is making me sick. It sure smells like a big boys club locker room in here. I have been a professional graphic designer for 11 years. My clients requested dinc fonts regularly and now request Snapfonts. They and I love the website, the look, the fact that they are willing to offer free fonts to designers who can't afford fonts puts them head and shoulders over all of you. This sounds like sour grapes to me. Chester, you actually think Strike is an original font from House? Guess again. And while we trashing type companies check yourself. Your fonts are overpriced, ancient, tired, and out of date. So is your website. Mark, I've seen your fonts and to be brutally honest, as you are, the only two that look original are the two godawful hand printed fonts. You all have the nerve to trash a company that reaches out to the design community with great graphic design, reasonably priced typefaces which work well, and offer some pleasure and actually give away very nice fonts for kids and students and designers who can't afford them. Shame on you all and your self-righteous ownership of originality. As for Hildebrandt, the usability of Snapfonts is just fine, if I was the owner of the company, I would contact your ISP first and report you for harrassment, if not sue you for libel. Didn't your parents ever tell you if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all? Especially when you've got nothing better to show. You are seriously interfering with someone's right to own and operate a business and earn a livelihood. That is against the law. You should all think before you speak. The internet is not some anonymous barrier that keeps you safe and sound. You are responsible for everything you do and say. Good font karma to all of you. Maybe if you were better designers you wouldn't be so threatened. FYI the only decent fonts I've ever used are House Industries and dinc Type and Snap Fonts. I would show you my client list but you people aren't even worthy. I'm ashamed to even be posting a response to your little boys' temper tantrum......ooooh so threatened aren't you. I think you all should take a look at the Snap Fonts library and if you don't think it's original, surprise yourself. Then go look at your pitiful fonts. Grunge in the year 2003, and highly derivative, and I say that in as kind a way as I can. But that's OK for you, not for Snapfonts.

"If you continue on this thread, Snapfonts will contact the ISP of this site and remind them that trashing a company in print is libel."

Hey, "Doctor" Jayne Moschella, how's this for libel: I doubt that you have a real PhD. A search on the Internet for your name reveals no peer-reviewed research or even a letter to the editor of a academic journal. Furthermore, I don't know of one PhD who writes his or her name "Dr. So-and-So."

Get over yourself and go and contact my ISP about this print(?) "libel." They'll laugh at you.

Both sites have clearly been designed by the same person with the same style and similar content, both sites link back and forth to one another, both feature fonts designed by Diane DiPiazza, and both have "information" pages that emphatically claim that one has nothing to do with the other, both ironically set in the same all-caps Futura-style font. Weird.

Hello, all. First, I'd like to thank the always observant John Butler for drawing my attention to the posted free rendition apparently derived from my original design, TF Avian (actually, my TF Avian Extrabold). Mr. Butler is a genuine friend to honest, quality typography. To be clear and for the record, I personally conceived and drew, digitized and fitted TF Avian myself, entirely by hand. A little over a decade ago. Long days. I recall lots of toil, countless hours and a fair degree of typical artistic anguish getting it all just right. In general, I don't appreciate it that a fellow 'designer' that site has chosen to represent has elected to copy my TF Avian, apparently so closely. It's impossible for me to tell whether it's an exact duplicate or not from the site display I looked at today, and I don't download free fonts from the internet. Most likely, the 'designer' they represent did not even render it personally. Rather, I'll bet that another longtime mediocre clone of my TF Avian often posted on Smashing Pumpkins fan web sites, dubbed 'The Aeroplane Flies High' after the record album of that name by the SP, was likely re-cloned, perhaps massaged a trifle, renamed, resaved and slung like outdated hash onto that site. (By the way, that record album used the authentic TF Avian. After that album debuted, I called Virgin Records and was able to speak with the graphic designer of the album, who had been thrilled to use the actual typeface, not a clone. It was important to him.) In any event, looking at the showing, it does not appear to me that any original creativity was involved. But step back from whether it's simply a cloned, or cloned and massaged, copy. That's important, but not the only issue. Overall -- simply encountering it as an average type specifier might on their site's showing -- I have to conjecture that anyone with a passing familiarity with my TF Avian would undoubtedly say, "Wow! Avian...for free! Great! And what a great site to give me Avian for free! Oooh, and I'm getting all tingly being bad! Ooooh!" To be fair, there will likely some who won't recognize TF Avian and will just click to get anything that's free. (Sad, but I guess there really are a lot of desperate computer users out there. If you're a graphic designer clicking for free font clones, you and your bosses really should stop and question what you're really bringing to your work. If your criteria for what goes into your design portfolio -- the mirror of your creative life -- is that it's free, you should revisit what it means to be a graphic designer on behalf of your client. To students: We've always offered our fonts at half price to students and educators. But you have to ask, rather than assuming there's no discount, and resorting to stealing, so early in your design career.) I would bet that the font is on that page at that site because the author and perhaps the site's sponsor know that it is a direct derivitive, and perhaps a tracing that's 'close enough' to fool the public in sort of a 'bait and switch' tactic to gain friends. It's a marketing decision. I assume this, too, because, after all, what's a clone of TF Avian doing on a supposedly retro site anyway? What's so retro about TF Avian? Yes, it has great hypno power, I've always hoped...but, retro? So, there's obviously more at work there, as far as deceptive marketing goes. As the designer of the authentic TF Avian, I am left to assume that their derivitive has been posted because the author and site sponsor seek to add value to their own works and site, by encroaching on and indeed unfairly leveraging my original creativity. If their goal is something other than leeching off my originality, then I would ask the good Doctor to permanently remove that derivitive font at once, have that 'designer' (if they even exist or are known to you) apologize offline to me for seeking to leech off my originality in an effort to add perceived value to their site's wavering marketing appeal, and destroy the offending data. (If the shoe were on the other hand, that's what I would do, I assure you.) Thank you, in advance, Doctor, for your cooperation in this. By the way, if anyone has the physical mailing address for that company, I should like to mail them directly. Thank you very sincerely to those among you who stand against font and software piracy. You fight the good fight, and I can tell you that original type designers everywhere -- the last vestiges of real typographic creativity in this world -- appreciate your honesty immensely. To those who pirate and post, my sympathy: you're already in a self-styled Hell, aren't you? You know, you most likely only have one life to live. Why waste your precious time here on something as pointless as pirating? Get out there and do something truly vibrant and original. At least, do something that will truly will benefit humanity. I feel great every day about my design work because I start by trying to add something really new and beneficial to typography. Copyists, you can surely find something honest that can help you feel good about you, too. I know you can do it, but you have to go out and try. Seize this moment. Go get started on your breathtaking new life now! - Joe Treacy, Treacyfaces, Inc.

My first comment to the smart aleck Amanda is I never said I had a phd. did I? You know nothing and I will contact the server of this site and your ISP for harrassment. How's that for libel? I am medical doctor with an interest in typography. Secondly, when we acquired the dinc library from them, they were gracious enough to make templates for our pages. If the site has a similar look and feel it's because our designers paid homage to the dinc site as closely as they could.
Third, my sincerest apologies to Joseph Treacy. I am not an expert on typography, I am a doctor. I have designers who I trust to design the fonts on the Snapfonts site. I have attempted to design fonts as I also have a degree in fine arts, but it was too difficult for me. I know how painstaking it is to design a typeface. I am an artist who works on canvas in oil. I don't which font you are referring to as TF Avian, please tell me what it is called at Snapfonts and it will be removed immediately.
Again, my apologies. I respect the work of other artists and would never knowingly breach that respect. What is the font called at my site and it will be gone today. please write to me at snapfonts@aol.com and I will remove it myself. I will not be visiting this site again. I am honestly and sincerely sorry Mr. Treacy. As far as I know, none of these fonts were pirated by any of my designers. But I happen to respect Mr. Treacy and his kindness and gentleness in pointing this out to me and if he says this is his typeface, I certainly would not post it and will remove it immediately.

BTW, to all of you who think you have the right to freedom of speech....we all have freedom of speech but that freedom of speech ends where another's freedom to earn a living and not be harrassed begins. So I suggest you all get a life, get off these boards and leave people alone, unless you want to be harrassed in the same manner. This is quite the board full of a handful of really nasty undiplomatic people. I'm glad I've never been here and will never return. If anyone has designed a typeface that they believe has been pirated by Snapfonts, please alert me and it will be removed immediately.

I've seen your fonts and to be brutally honest, as you are, the only two that look original are the two godawful hand printed fonts.

Well, they are all original designs (not just the godawful ones), and I would challenge anyone to identify an earlier typeface that any of them are directly based on.

Many (not all) of the fonts on Snapfonts are clearly based on earlier, often well-known fonts. Remy, Euro, and Jaguar, for instance, are clearly derived from Brush Script, a popular typeface that's been around since the 1930s and available digitally since the 1980s. The only thing the designer did (as far as I can tell) was to change the proportions and/or angle of slant. Whether they were redrawn or not I can't tell. It would seem to me to be a lot of trouble to redraw Brush Script, and then only release distorted versions of it. The basic letterforms of Brush Script have not been altered at all. If you have Brush Script on your computer, you can recreate all three of these "unique and original" fonts in a page layout program, by stretching and skewing the text box.

It's one thing to be influenced or inspired by earlier type designs. It's quite another thing to copy them, do a bit of distorting, give them a different name, and claim they are original. Technically, the law may be on your side, but you're not going to win any friends in the type design community.

(In fairness, I don't agree that Woody is a knock-off of Strike. They are similar in design, but they are clearly not the same letterforms.)

A medical doctor? Ha!

You aren’t licensed to practice medicine in Florida where you are supposedly a dean of academics and chair of alternative medicine at your “school.”

It looks like the president of your “school” is about 35. You must play a very important role in the credibility of your pseduo-scientific academic world “Dr.”

It seems that Amanda is a scary stalker.

I'm going to make this easy for all of us: Dinc and Snap are both terrible. But since there are losers in the world, there is a market for cheap pieces of shit and/or knockoffs.

Also, I think it was just a bad idea to bring Snap and Dinc up in a place like this. You will find no fans of them here, that's for sure. Now we're all getting sued.

Hello, all.

Thank you to Dr. Jayne Moschella of Snapfonts for so graciously responding -- and so promptly.

I have replied to her offlist, identifying the suspect font for her. I've told her that I'd anticipated (from reading the beginnings of this thread) that she was an unwitting accomplice, but have accepted her apology nonetheless.

I'm assuming that their design Woof will be removed from service, based on her statement.

Wish I was writing today with happier news, alas.

Have a great day, everyone.

- Joe Treacy, Treacyfaces, Inc.

What's just great about these angry threads is the fact that often nice, informed, and reasonable people like John Hudson pop in and bring very likely with them other professionals like Joseph Treacy. :)

I try to do that myself many times, and it's very good to see how in the end "Pop will eat itself" (in this case "Pop" are lunatics which very likely do not even know where our alphabet comes from).

I've never been an awesome fan of Joseph articles (I remind one from Publish magazine) but I surely always appreciated the quality and integrity of both his faces and ethics.

And Avian is really cool, considered the difficulties in keeping its repetitive element in all the letters as a system.
When I was in my "roaring days reprise fascination" phase I loved Hotelmoderne. Hey, don't get me wrong, I love Treacy(Faces) even now but I've ended up desiging my ill-faces, studying paleography and epigraphy, and in the end losing myself in arguments with Hrant, which they eventually brougfht always something good and increased my interests in non-latin typography and too much things to mention here.

Thanks to John as always, and this time to Joseph Treacy, too!

Besides, would someone explain me why "Atomic Kitten" should be a "good link"? The only good thing is their producer, ex-leader of brit band "Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark".
Check out their 3rd (and greatest) album, "Architecture and Morality" and when you'll have finished listening to it nobody will remember Atomic Kitten anymore, I suspect...

My God in Heaven.....Are you people gonna crucify me or what? Claudio, your name should be nitpicker not piccinini.....I have to explain my choice of links to you too???????? Leave me alone, all of you. I have already reported Amanda's stalking behavior to the powers that be, I've hopefully made peace with the very gracious and talented Joe Treacy and now, I have to defend my choice of links!!!! Atomic Kitten is a good link because I LIKE IT. It's my website and I LIKE IT. There that's why it's a good link. I imagine a few other people might like it too. Please get a life and stop bothering me and I am asking again, to the owners of this site, to remove this hateful, malicious thread. I've checked your terms of service with your ISP. Malicious behavior is not tolerated nor is stalking or spamming or harrassment. I'm asking you nicely to end the insanity. This is turning into a witch hunt and I'm seriously worried about Amanda's stalking behavior and now I'm having people criticize my links??????? Enough is enough. Claudio, I'm very familiar with OMD. Enola Gay and Souvenir are two of my favorite songs. If I think Atomic Kitten is a fun link, what's your problem with that? My links should reflect your taste, My design should reflect all your tastes. This is truly the sickest board I've ever seen and I respectfully request that you remove this thread.

Jeeeeeeez. Chill out! There is room for criticism, and we all have to take our lumps sometimes. There is a lot of critiqueing/criticzing/griping going on in the typography and design worlds, and it's not always pleasant. There is also anger and frustration because of copyright infringement and being ripped off as a designer in whatever medium. It happens all the time! Sometimes people may jump the gun, perhaps they make unfounded accusations - oh, well, we're all only human, after all. That's what apologies were designed for, yeah?

It *appears* as though you have knockoffs/clones/derivations in your library. The people who are saying that are generally pretty savvy about this stuff. I am sure many of your fonts were drawn from scratch, but it's possible some weren't. That's up to you to determine now. If you're not sure about the origins of a font, it's good practice to pull it until you know for sure that it's legit. That goes for both free and commercial fonts, of course.

Anyone running a foundry should try their best to make sure the fonts they distribute are original works, and don't infringe on anyone else's rights. Sometimes it's tough, as there are tens of thousands of fonts already out there. Good case in point, TreacyFace's Avian - removing the possible knockoff was absolutely the right thing to do. And Joe was also very gracious in his attitude, which you should be thankful for. He doesn't *have* to be. If you are unsure of the origins of a font, ask the designer to document his/her development process, as that can be really helpful in cases like this.

Typeface designs are not copyright protectable in the US, but other countries do offer this protection. If you distribute typefaces internationally, you open yourself up to the laws of other lands. And font data *is* protected in the US.

And really - who cares who likes someone's links or doesn't? It's merely one man's opinion. Not liking the design or denigrating the usability of a site? It happens all the time! So? It's not a personal attack, it's not stalking, and someone publicly stating they don't like your links or your navigation (or lack thereof) shouldn't affect your business, unless your customer base is incredibly immature. A witch hunt? Hardly.

Coming here and talking about stalking and libel and lawsuits will only hurt you. Doing a Google search on someone is not stalking. If Amanda is hiding in your bushes or sending you hate email, worry. Otherwise, blow it off, because it's just life on the internet.

Trying to suppress freedom of speech can get you on the list at http://slashdot.org/ or a similar forum. That doesn't look good for any business, especially one operating on the net.

As long as you are trying to do the right thing in running your business, feel good about what you do and not worry about what other people say. No one is perfect, and we all do our best. If you're doing something illegal or unethical, then you can worry.

If this is the sickest forum you have ever seen, count yourself lucky. There is lively debate here, and sometimes with that comes accusations and animosity. But most of all, there is a community here, and it's pretty great.

To address Jen Shaw's comment: yes, there is a high percentage of males here, but that's relative to the makeup of this field of endeavor. The level of testosterone here has never bothered me, because gender doesn't seem to matter to most of us. I find it odd that you would label this thread misogynistic, when gender has nothing to do with any of the accusations made.

Of course, we are always hoping to get more women to participate, and you (Jayne, Jen, anyone?) could have a great time here and learn a lot if you weren't so freaked out and defensive about the whole thing.

Maybe we can talk about something else now.

Just my two cents on this whole issue. Live and let live. Tamye, your remarks are sensitive and thoughtful to a point. I for one was shocked at this whole thread and I'm not one to be shocked easily. I have to disagree with you that when a company and an individual's reputation is being trashed from pillar to post as Snapfonts was here, that they should chill out. And when it starts to get really sarcastic and malicious as in the case of Amanda's remarks, it turns really ugly. She may not be hiding in anyone's bush, but she actually posted a malicious remark about a person's occupation and livelihood, as if she has a better occupation than a doctor. Moreover, when the ugliness turns to sheer venom as in her case, it's stalking. She crossed a line, seriously, when she posted a link to the owner of Snapfonts job. That is uncalled for, it is personal information, and it implies that she can mess with her livelihood. Everyone knows that is a line that should not be crossed. It's criminal not only offensive. This is so wrong and anyone who can't see that should take their eyes off of a typeface for a second and think about what has been done here. A person, who is obviously a doctor and the dean of a college, has been disparaged for her work at a font foundry. To expose her personal life with a link to her job is mean spirited, it's malicious, and a breach of privacy. I am deeply offended as a human being and I am surprised that whoever operates this board would allow that kind of violation of privacy and open themselves up to the liability involved. Typefaces are not the beginning and end of the world. Humanity and decency, however, are.

However John, there is a large discrepency the livelihood of Ms. Moschella and of Ms. DiPiazza.

What hasn't been explained with any degree of clarity is the mysterious "Why?" regarding the financial relationship of either party to these foundries.

Both Ms. DiPiazza and Ms. Moschella have gone so far out of their way to make sure everybody in the entire world knows that Ms. DiPiazza isn't profiting from this endeavour it hardly seems to make any sense why a type designer would build an entire library of commercial quality typefaces and simply fold up shop and hand it off to another entity to redistribute without receiving a royalty.

Is there some legal trouble that prevents Ms. Piazza from claiming income from the sale of her work? Is she so independently wealthy that income from fonts is inconsequential to her? This would be counter productive to the act of selling fonts for money.

And why has Ms. Moschella decided to go into the font business? Primarily based on the work of somebody else? How can she have an entire staff that creates site content and fonts in the same look and voice as Ms. DiPiazza?

I believe Mr. Cushman's observations are absolutely accurate and weather or not Ms. DiPiazza is receiving any money from Snapfonts, this entire charade dripping of suspicion.

Why is snapfonts.com down now?

Perhaps "Doctor" Moschella needed to study for her MCAT exams.

Oh, wait...nevermind.

Hello, all -

A couple of random comments, if I may.

I enjoy nitpicking - to a point. But not splitting hairs, ordinarily.

Nonetheless, because these archives tend to live on into infinity, please allow me to interject and correct a misspelling in our company name and its possessive form as written (probably hastily) above....

The reason why is that other companies have suffered the same fractured identity, repeatedly. For instance, there's 'BitStream' (which is 'Bitstream') and 'LetraSet' (which has always been 'Letraset').

In the case of those well known brands (whose trademarks are their respective properties), the misspelling started popping up in print well before desktop publishing, and has continued here and there, despite (I'd imagine) those companies' best efforts at correction.

Anyway, here goes: Our official spellings are these:

Treacyfaces, Inc.
or just Treacyfaces.

All one word with a lowercase 'f'.

The possessive, naturally, would be: Treacyfaces'.

By the way, we have consistently used the 'TF' prefix for our fonts since our founding in 1984. And always starting the family name phrase, never at the end.

Thanks for listening, and thanks again for the kind words about my typefaces.

I hope that over the years, that they have served you well.

If any of you have produced any graphic design pieces using purchased Treacyfaces fonts, I'd always enjoy seeing your work. You're welcome to write me anytime, and if you have the work displayed on a website or as part of customer work, to point me to the URL.

This certainly has been an interesting 19 years, hasn't it?

It certainly would have been interesting to be present at the creation of moveable type. But I can't think of a better time in history to be working in typography, than right now.

(Joe)

Joe Treacy
Treacyfaces, Inc.

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> Leave me alone, all of you.

Uh...aren't you the one that came in here? Maybe you're new to the internet, but this is kinds how it works. Threatening legal action online is rarely the best way to win respect and/or friends.

Funny thread...BUT...I MUST ask that we TRY to break our commentary into readable paragraphs.

Doctor: I believe that to prove some kind of libel, you'd have to show that the audience for the vehicle of speech had their opinion of you changed by the speech in question - that is, you'd have to show that we all had a high opinion of your practices, such as they are, before people started talking about them here. According to the two attornies I asked about this, public forums have been shown to not be liable for speech they facilitate, at least in the state hosting this site and the country that registered the domain. Your threat, on the other hand, could very well be illegal.

Your name-calling, threats of legal action and suggestion that somehow any criticism of your practices is "misogynistic" are laughable. I'm sorry if you feel uncomfortable with other people's opinion of what you are doing on the snapfonts site. But if this discussion offends you so much, I think maybe it would be best if you just stayed away from it altogether.

"Why is snapfonts.com down now?"

My thoughts exactly. What happened?
I have to admit, that is quite ironic, after all the threatning to shut all of us down and such.

:)

hildebrant.

My only request is addressed to the people who have been posting seemingly interminable tirades: please please please learn how to break big blocks of text into manageable paragraphs.

Kudos to Joe Treacy on excellent mastery of the form, as well as a general big-heartedness.

The basics of libel law if anyone was wondering.

http://www.wave.net/immigration/lawyer/libel.html

Mrs. Moschella, I was just being ironic on Atomic Kitten, sorry! My post seemed serious because it followed the previous one.
Just a fun remark, nothing related to typographic ethics...

2 possible solutions to theses long tirades:

-Find an Oxygen mask before reading longlonglong paragraphs
or
-Make paragraphs shorter

Thanks in advance, to indicate the way you follow in the beginning

Besides I'm everyhing but misogynistic, I'm pretty much the opposite. As Tamye pointed out, the male preminence in trades is just a social byproduct, I generally hardly notice it.

Apologies to Chesire Dave and everyone which should hate me for my "novel-length" posts (bus I try to broke them in pieces, you see).

My only request is addressed to the people who have been posting seemingly interminable tirades: please please please learn how to break big blocks of text into manageable paragraphs.

PERSON more like. Quarters to nickles says all these newcomers posting are all the same person. They certainly write and break paragraphs (or not) the same way.

Afterthoughts

John, Chester, Mark, I am with you all the way in dealing with font piracy, plagiarism and knockoffs, but lately I have adopted a more cautious stance. So if it seemed I was against you that wasn't my intention. I was allowing for unknowns, and the situation not being as simple as it looked.

I respect all of you for your typographic work, which I also admire. But since I am fairly new to type design very few people have seen my work, and so I am an obscure, unknown element. I'm hoping to get my Sentinel Type website launched in the next month or two. Meanwhile here is a sample, Ganymede 3D. Note that this is a signage-specific display variant of a more versatile base design, and my other fonts (3) are better than Ganymede.

Could someone tell me if I did the right thing or the wrong thing by daring Snapfonts' proprieter to come here? Also, am I okay, or am I ill-mannered? I really need feedback on this.

Now for Dr. Jayne Mocshella

>[Snapfonts] has nothing to do with Diane DiPiazza

Dr. Mocshella, I only mentioned Diane DiPiazza in connection with Dinc, and then talked about Snapfonts being much the same thing on the basis of the original article text "Dinc becomes Snapfonts". It may appear that I specifically connected Diane DiPiazza with Snapfonts, but I was in fact talking about her in relation to Dinc fonts, with details like, "a year ago". Certainly I did not say, specifically, that Diane DiPiazza was the proprietor of Snapfonts, nor did I assume any such thing.

>Finally, James I find you quite crass.

Ho-ho, ha-ha, it is to laugh. In this insufferably polite politically correct world, social politics has degenerated to the point where expressing any kind of negative opinion is tantamount to a criminal offense. If I express a positive view the reciever gushes with self-congratulatory glee. What is so incredibly bad about a negative view? There is room in this world for both. And if you hadn't noticed, I criticized the fonts in your library, not you personally. And your reaction is to call me crass. I got a good laugh out of that. Thankyou.

If I say a creative work is undesirable (can I say that? ;-) it is criticism and nothing more. It is not a put-down, and I am not a crass person. I am simply critical and unafraid to say what I think. This is also known as peer review. People who cannot handle peer review and criticism tend to be unrealistic and reluctant to develop; swallowing your pride and opening yourself up to criticism is one of the best things you can do to improve your abilities, standards, creative work. Admitting your faults is one of the few shortcuts available.

Also, none of us feel the least bit threatened as you assert. What may look like anger in our writings is simply passion for the subject of type. Nor do any of us as individuals or a group assume ownership of originality in type design. The main purpose of arguing against plagiarism and derivative works is to maintain good ethics and produce more original fonts.

Criticism is not libel.

>all these newcomers posting are all the same person

I assume you don't mean me. My posts on this thread are broken into chunks of separate thoughts as always. I would describe myself in relation to Typographi.ca as a 'relative newcomer'. If anyone has any doubts check the originating IP address for my posts.

On the basis of their typography it looks like Jenn Shaw and Dr. Jayne Mocshella are the same writer. And who is Jenn Shaw anyway?

I find this all rather amusing – particularly the ‘threats’ of legal action.

I’d like to investigate myself but snapfonts seems to have mysteriously disappeared for a ‘redesign’.

“If I say a creative work is undesirable (can I say that? ;-) it is criticism and nothing more.”

Very true James, and you’ve inadvertently touched on something that’s been bothering me for a while; should you close round brackets when they’re preceeded by a smiling emoticon? Someone ask Bringhurst (:))

Jordan

>I criticized the fonts in your library, not you personally. And your reaction is to call me crass.

With you all the way, James

I suggest that everyone here should get more fiber in their diet.

And I think common sense would say that just because someone was the first to digitize someone else's earlier work doesn't meant they own the concept that they "stole" (brush script, etc.)

What else did you guys do while I was in Spain, and not tell me? Tsk tsk tsk...

hhp

What is Drama?

You think we could get Sam Waterston to do a commercial for Typographica?

Typographica: We Know Drama