Local designer and typographic man-about-town, Stephen Banham of Letterbox has created what this blog thinks may well be a world first. Stephen has designed a new OpenType font called Bisque and the exclusive international rights to this particular font for "a limitless number of CPUs for a period of a year, will be up for grabs on ebay between April 17 and April 27 (World Graphic Design Day)."
We're still waiting on official confirmation of the 'world-first-ness' of all of this – mind you, we're not even too sure whom we should officially ask anyway (!) – but the successful bidder gets Bisque to themselves (or their studio or agency) for an entire year.
Bisque is a fluid, script-like font and Banham has taken "full advantage of OpenType scripting, featuring a staggering array of ligatures, contextual alternates and kerning pairs. Bisque is by far the most advanced and comprehensive font yet released by Letterbox and includes Latin, European, Eastern European and Cyrillic character sets".
Coming to ebay soon. Stay tuned for updates on 1+1=3.
I would say Stephen has done a first—again.
Posted by: Jack Yan | 15 February 2007 at 01:44 PM
Interesting. Nice typeface regardless.
Posted by: Rebecca | 26 February 2007 at 11:42 PM
Thankyou for your comments. If we thought a few years ago that typefaces took a long time to develop, the expansive world of Opentype has been both a blessing (the glyph choices) but also a cane for our own backs (the work involved).
As most people in the design trade know, the two ways a type designer earns a living is by either selling the fonts direct to customers or by being commissioned by brief to create a customised typeface. The auctioning of the exclusive rights sits somewhere between the two by acknowledging the global marketplace for new typefaces. So that perhaps a third stream of income can be made.
It could also be seen as yet another strategy against the ominpresent piracy of fonts.
Posted by: Stephen Banham | 27 February 2007 at 12:25 PM