hot dude. very :)

I'm loving the entire Neopolicia family. A nice display of your versatility. Great samples too.

Excellent.

After a long discussion, the FontStruct staff decided to remove the Top Pick badge from this FontStruction. While we’re happy that FontStructors are inspired by the work of other type designers, sometimes the similarities are too great to merit a Top Pick.

This was a very difficult decision, but we believe that we are acting in the interest of our entire creative community. We are ready to start a discussion about originality in type design and criteria for assigning Top Picks.

Booooo.

Slippery. Slope.

Oh, the controversy! Scandalous!

This opens up a nice Pandora's box full of argumentation. I'm deeply interested in what both sides have to say. But first, here's where I stand in cogitation over the issue.

@djnippa: I have to admit, I was a little disappointed to discover that it was not a totally original design of yours, but 166 characters derived from 10 with 7 variations is a hefty achievement. That being said, I think you've improved on the original design. Being less condensed than Grant, it is more legible and therefore more usable. I especially like how you've smoothed out the edges. This release makes me wonder what happens when a free FontStruct font is better than a commercially available version? I have many unreleased fonts that I keep private in deference to professional designers, but I wonder where the limit is now.

Whatever pans out, Nippa, you seem to be involved with a lot of significant firsts on Fontstruct: first to publicly sell his fontstructions, first to have a Top Pick revoked. Please continue!

@gferreira: I would like to know the contents of the conversation that went on to revoke the Neopolicia series. I can understand one version being revoked, but every single iteration? Are we all now subject to a retroactive Top Pick revocation?

I acknowledge the responsibility you have in officially supporting fontstructions with a Top Pick badge. Being a major type foundry, this can be construed as Font Shop's condoning of what is released in the gallery, and can be frowned upon if competing shops find their creations being presented. Much like how thalamic discovered the redistribution of Fontstruct fonts on abstractfonts.com, but on a commercial level.

Can you let us all know what the existing criteria is for attaining a Top Pick, and what you think needs changing?

It's a tricky one, alright. I must admit, when I first saw this, I didn't vote for it because I saw it was fairly closely based on an existing face. Nippa wasn't being nefarious -- I wouldn't have been any the wiser if he hadn't quoted his sources.

And he does have a legitimate point: he's fleshed out the entire character set... some of which must be considered to be non-derivative.

On the other hand I'd hate Fontstruct to attract the kind of legal notoriety that Napster brought down on itself, by not being seen to discourage copying.

Would we rather have this kind of curb or potentially no Fonstruct at all?

my thoughts on this are complex, maybe too complex to tell in english :(

i'll try:
Nippa, this is VERY close to "Grant"! My girlfriend didn't even get the difference!
I think being influenced THAT way, doesn't bring you into the position to get any fame for the idea/creation. Sure you changeda lot and kicked out nice variations, but after all i think especially YOU would be pissed if you was the original creator of "Grant".
Hm... i'm sorry but in this case i'd say it's a very WISE interpretation, but NOT worth being a toppick, cause i see the dot as something to honour your creativity...
I wonder what the creator of "Grant" thinks about that...

Don't get me wrong, but i think, you often got a demanding undertone in your words, which i'm not sure about...
I mean, you could use and download it, without publishing it :)

hm... it's tricky though

You got a high voting, you got your fonts published!
is that toppick important?

To give the Top Pick and then revoke with little or no explanation is rather disappointing. What is the next step? Deleting the font?

A few of my thoughts...

Comparisons to Napster aren't very accurate in my opinion. Napster was used to trade perfect (or nearly) digital copies of songs.

Djnippa is not trying to pass off an exact copy of another font as his own. He clearly stated his source inspiration and that he only had 10 glyphs to base his entire set off of. In fact, although they are obviously similar, they are distinctly different.

Maybe I'm sensitive because I've been djnippa's shoes. I didn't have a Top Pick revoked, but I was accused of theft (see Squire). There are some constructive comments mingled in amongst the shouting idiot's.

Another really good thread is on plagiacotti. There are a lot of great comments there that directly relate to this.

Beyond legal issues (IANAL), it boils down to when does inspiration turn to copying. It is a continuum I suppose, with the extremes being "any similarity is copy" to "it's not a copy unless it is the original .ttf file."

@gferreira. Never having assigned a Top Pick is one thing, removing a Top Pick is completely another. I hope to see a formal, written criteria for Top Pick before even a single more Top Pick is awarded because as of right now it is just too arbitrary and whimsical for it to be meaningful.

i'm definitely late to this party. mixed feelings here. definitely all for digital freedom. how can anybody own a byte? just like any art that we may create, it's really only leased to whoever creates or "owns" it. sure, if someone or a company uses any type of software to make a profit, then pay the owner.

i'd be upset about losing a pink dot. this is a reflection of what this site means to us - especially investing so much time and energy into little more than just a "hobby". but it is more. perhaps terms and conditions pretty much say it all - fs can pretty much run the site how they want - and they've done a pretty good damn job. i never did a digital font before and probably would not have. i'm not interested in learning another photoshop. fonts are disposable. their intrinsic value probably nil. nowadays nobody pays for a font unless its part of a job, print or ad - where they know they better have rights or its trouble.

i think nippa's fonts, although inspired by, were actually better than the original. which may be an even more bitter pill to swallow than the possibility that someone is losing money. perhaps more like someone is losing money because someone may like this font better so why pay for something you don't like as much. makes sense to me. fs and fontshop are in a touchy situation that seems to be uncharted territory. best of luck guys.

maybe now is the time to add some different colored dots - maybe purple maybe blue. call it top creative design pick, or top technical pick, or top original pick or even honorable mention. and definitely djnippa and aphoria and anybody else who lost one should be re-awarded an appropriate dot. i think this will go a long way towards (re)building goodwill.

inspiration can come from anywhere and shouldn't be tamped down. but everything is politics. even here. at least we can express ourselves and hopefully keep growing :)

I was thinking...once a formal criteria for Top Pick is established, wouldn't that necessitate a reevaluation of all existing Top Picks, as well as reviewing of all shared fonts not awarded Top Picks as yet. And just for completion's sake, it would be nice to get some sort of notification that says something like, "Your FontStruction was reviewed and was deemed unworthy of a Top Pick. Do better next time." so that we don't have to wonder whether the font was reviewed and passed over or not reviewed at all.

Also, a new category of 'Not Crap' might be established for FontStructions that are, well, not crap, but not quite Top Pick material. And and and, maybe an explanation of what would have to change in the font to convert it to a Top Pick.

Furthermore, I understand that all this is lots of work. Maybe you could nominate a trusted user, like geneus1 or afrojet to be an honorary member of FontStruct who could share the Top Pick duties with you.

Also also also, one of the things that makes FontStruct a favorite of so many is the fun nature of the whole thing. Whatever you do, please recognize the soul of FontStruct and don't kill it in the process of formalization.

Thank you.

Hi,

I'm far too new to the world of FontStruct to comment on this weighty matter, but ... in the interests of 'a discussion about originality in type design and criteria for assigning Top Picks.' (gferreira above) would it not be a good idea to have a FontStruct forum so that these things can be debated more easily.

I wouldn't even have stumbled across this matter if I had not followed up on djnippa's work after he had kindly offered this newbie a tip about Brick Stacking.

Good discussion. An important discussion. Thanks Nippa for keeping this thread open and providing a space for people to quorum. This is a delicate dance for sure as Fontstruct encourages cloning but not copying.

"Where do you draw the line, I'm not telling you I'm asking you?" - Jello Biafra

Nippa you are an active member of the Fontstruct community with an impressive body of work and you always bring real honest critique and criticism to other peoples work. One of your trademarks is a constant need to improve not only your own work but the works of others. I think you see something and say, "Hey, cool. I think this can be done better." And I think that's a tremendous asset.

So in the case of Grant v. Neopolicia, it's hard for me to look at this as an unbiased judge because I know something about where you're coming from. I simply see this as another font that you think you can improve. And here I think it's all about intention. I don't think it is/was your intention to merely copy the Grant font. I believe you set out to improve it. I do think that you could have helped your case when you originally published Neopolicia if you had been more transparent with your intention and if you had written in more detail about how you saw Neopolicia as being an improvement over the Grant font.

Perhaps this illustrates again the need for a true Fontstruct forum. Perhaps if there had been a place for Nippa to throw up the Grant sample and say, "Hey anybody know what font this is, it looks like it was made with Fontstruct?" this could have been discussed prior to publication. (I know there are numerous other Type ID boards out there but maybe the Fontstruct community needs it's own).

I am positively surprised with the maturity of the comments so far. Thanks to everyone for contributing with well formulated ideas and for discussing with civility.

There are of course too many things to reply to and comment on at once, so I’ll focus on what I think is most important at the moment.

First of all, there’s no reason to worry about a “retroactive Top Pick revocation” – this was an isolated episode which can be better described as “a Top Pick which should never had been given”.

Here are the facts:

The Top Picks for the three Neopolicia fonts (Jump Drop, Harlequin and Drop Serif) were given by mistake, before I knew that the whole family was heavily inspired by Grant. I was very disappointed when I found out that the features I had considered special in Neopolicia were in fact features from Grant.

I also felt cheated: my mistake was induced by the lack of credits to the original design in two of the three Neopolicia fonts. The appropriate credits for Grant were included in these fonts only after I made an explicit request through a comment on the Jump Drop page. Credits, images and explanatory messages were added soon after my request, but at the same time my comment was deleted, resulting in a thread that read as as if: 1. I had never been there, 2. the credits to Grant were included spontaneously (and not after a formal request), and worst 3. I had rewarded the three fonts knowing that they were heavily based on an existing typeface! which was definitely not true.

The rest of the story is known: it took us a few days to discuss the issue, and we agreed to remove the Top Picks and initiate this discussion.

(to be continued in another post)

Having cleared up the facts, let’s move on to the two most important issues in discussion here:

Originality in type design

We could spend days, weeks & months in a complex and deep philosophical debate about this topic, and we would probably never agree to a conclusion or a general rule. At this point of the discussion, the most relevant questions seem to be: Where to draw the line between reference, inspiration and copy? When is a copy/inspiration/reference good, when is it bad? Again, I don’t think there are simple answers to these questions. When decisions need to be made, one inevitably needs to take the particularities of each case in consideration.

In this particular case, I don’t think that the Neopolicia fonts are illegal copies of Grant (but I Am Not A Lawyer). The main issue I see here is ethical, not legal: Is it correct to A. copy all distinctive features of a recently released commercial design? B. to sell such a heavily influenced design in competition to the original one? C. to omit the credits to the original, causing confusion among users and potential buyers? My personal answer to all these questions is NO, it is not correct, even if it is not illegal.

I believe that, more than fear of legal consequences, it is the respect for each other that holds a community together; and that it is part of my job to promote these ethical values within the FontStruct community.

Criteria for choosing Top Picks

Top Picks are FontStructions that demonstrate what we, FontStruct staff, consider to be a high degree of skill, originality and typographic usefulness. This apparently very subjective definition has proven to be very efficient so far – in most cases it is clear which FontStructions deserve this honor and which don’t. Neopolicia was simply not considered original enough to deserve a Top Pick.

I need to say that I haven’t been able to select Top Picks as often as I would like to; FontStruct is growing very fast and we have a lot of work to do. But you can help: I am always open to suggestions and comments. I did receive two direct emails with suggestions for overlooked Top Picks this month and they were really helpful, even though I did not agree with all indications. Please, if think you think that a particular FontStruction deserves a Top Pic, don’t hesitate to send us suggestions.

(continues)

Lessons

I think that, even though the process has been a little bit traumatic, the outcome of this incident is positive. I find it very important that this discussion is taking place, and that so many users have participated with well articulated arguments – it makes me even more proud to be part of FontStruct.

I learned that I need to be extra careful (meaning read all comments in all related FontStructions) before assigning a Top Pick, and that, if there is a problem, I need to react fast before the problem grows bigger.

I hope that the criteria for assigning Top Picks are clearer now, and the message that we value originality and ethics above everything else has been spread.

If your FontStruction is based on an existing typeface: please include the proper credits in your description text – this avoids confusion and disputes about originality.

This apparently very subjective definition has proven to be very efficient so far – in most cases it is clear which FontStructions deserve this honor and which don’t.

Amen to that nippa.

Fantastic series, fantastic sample. Please don't let this discourage you and keep up the great work :)

Wow! I would have never thought that the Top Pick purple candy was worth such a controversy.

The Top Picks by definition are FontStructions selected by FontShop staff, and I think that as a user, even if personally I don't agree with almost 50% of the staff's selections, I cannot criticize the staff for picking or not a font, or revoking the pick. Nor I think that laying down a list of criteria would help: such a kind of selection is always personal, never objective, and what looks like skillful, original or useful to one person, may look the opposite to another.

If you look at top picks in the early days of FontStruct (my first font to be picked was Beamo, more than one year ago) you may see as criteria were really different, because we as users were less experienced, there were no complex fontstructions yet, there were less bricks (a lot of less bricks) available, etc. So it's natural that the criteria evolve, especially when someone new joins the FontStruct staff (BTW welcome Gustavo!).

Users have the rating systems to express their opinion on a font, and they can also express it in details in the comment sections. Of course I'm flattered when receiving a Top Pick, but I'm flattered as well when other users comments positively on my fonts, and maybe this is more interesting because it is an exchange between peers, while the Top Pick award cannot be publicly discussed for its own nature.

As concerning visibility, I think that top picks and visibility do not go always together. After a few days Top Picks are forgotten by users, and especially by accidental visitors, unless the fonts enter in the first pages of the Top Picks gallery. Just check how really few votes get the just-released-and-picked fonts which never access the top ten of the Top Picks gallery.

Instead of discussing about the Top Pick criteria I would find more interesting if FontStruct could offer different ways to expose fontstructions to visitors. I think that the What's New and the Gallery sections, and the featured download are not enough. Especially the latter is updated very rarely, overexposing a font to other fonts' disadvantage. Maybe fonts samples provided by users could be used to expose fontstructions in the news section; or a newsletter, like the FontShop one, could be sent to users, or could appear on the front page; or the news section could contain more infos concerning fontstructions that are appreciated outside the FontStruct community.

I think that finding new ways to increase the fontstructions visibility is much more important than discussing if a font deserves or not a Top Pick. In this way it could be possible to call attention not only to this or that single font, but to the FontStruct comunity as a whole as well.

@Em42 ditto ditto ditto

@djnippa agree agree agree.

@em42:
that's what i think as well!

I think I'm late to this discussion. Without reiterating many thoughts, opinions above I would simply tell you the following: You are a very talented artist. Your works, comments mean a lot for most of us. They radiate enthusiasm! Don't let this incident to take away your high-spirit.

Harlequin is a jolly good font. It deserves a full 10.

"Slippery. Slope." indeed!

I agree that Top picks should have other mediums of exposure (Em42 sujestions are good) but for that to work the criteria for top picking must exist. And it should have been implemented a long time ago because this isn't the first time this "problem" shows up.

I wholeheartedly endorse what Frodo7 has written.

This whole issue has left me a tad uncertain about my latest FS effort. In the absence of an open forum and without wishing to divert the discussion too far, I would like to ask for some guidance.

In an attempt to wrestle with the creation of rounded shapes I have been working on an Old English blackletter font.

I am aware that Monotype trademarked Engravers Old English as a commercial font ... but that in itself is just the formalisation of the script used by monks and scribes many centuries ago (unamed and now long forgotten). The same applies to many other Blackletter fonts

Surely, any attempt at such classic fonts must be deemed to be derivative ... yet I would hazard a guess that many (if not most) Fontsructers have tried their hand at these.

Will my humble efforts:

- be considered unethical?

- result in legal action by Monotype?

- bring down the wrath and curses of those old monk dudes?

So much to consider from such an innocent pastime ...

one of the best font i've ever seen ! fantastic reproduction !

Wow. Such sparks flying over a design.

A design that, in my opinion, djnippa retouched and made better than the original.

djnippa, I may be only a newbie here, but let me say this: I've -picked- this font for later use, as it's -top- quality.