Neo Sans
- Started
- Last post
- 28 Responses
- Nairn0
Meh, it ain't illegal til the font is actually used in in a [preferably commercial] piece, imo.
I've just now tried NeoSans and Tech in Freehand, and they ..er.. work.
I'm now wondering whether my geriatric copy of Illy might need updating? *sigh*
(and they wonder why people copy things?!)
- honest0
most designers live on the edge and use black market fonts, it's time they got arrested for handling stolen goods.
- rasko40
I'm telling Miss
- mr_snuggles0
I really liked the typeface TDR used in the 2D/3D book, so rather than buy it, which at the time, i don't think was even available, I redrew it in 2 weights, with a normal and rounded version, but alas I never finished the full character set and never actually brought it in to fontographer or fontlab...
So yes, i can attest to the lenghts certain fools will go to to avoid purchasing a font...
- rasko40
I'll try and find out if someone knows where it's from, unlikely though knowing this place - thanks
- MX_OnD0
this kind of thread I have missed of late.
cheers.
- Typographica0
MX - You are very right. It's easy to copy. Most common form of font piracy. Happens all the time. Even on this here damn forum. But that requires that the font be purchased first. Surprisingly some fonts have very few sales, which means very little piracy. Neo Sans, though, is not one of those.
rasko - True dat. I don't want to be accusatory, but it's just as likely that two parties have the same pirated copy. If somebody has licensed Neo from FontShop and is experiencing the prob I'll happily get our tech support folks on the job.
But like I said, I don't see the problem in the Neo font files available at FontShop.com.
- rasko40
I find that highly unlikely someone would go to the effort of doing that for both neosans and neotech and for all their defferent weights plus italics.
I think its a legitimately flakey postscript. Remember - two unrelated people are having the same problem.
- MX_OnD0
thanks Typographica.
a further daft question along the same lines...
what is to stop the unscrupulous designer (or even publishing house - Camden) simply "getting" a copy of a legitimately licensed font?
I know that fonts are valuable, but it seems somewhat extreme to go scanning them.. very interesting though!!
- Typographica0
MX - That's a valid question. Fonts are very different from other software in that they are not activated by serials or kraks. They are either originals or knockoffs/copies/recreations.
Fonts can be recreated by pirates in many ways. They can be scanned from specimen books and made into new font files or they can be extracted from documents in which they are embedded - most commonly PDFs.
It's very possible that the Neo Sans in question was extracted from a PDF which did not contain all the font's characters. That would explain the missing glyphs.
- MX_OnD0
at the risk of sounding petulant Typographica, do you honestly believe that "an illegitimate copy" could have select characters missing??
Please do correct me if it is possible that this is the case.
I know from damn near 6 years of offering technical support for Macromedia that the only difference to "cracked versions " of the "legitimate versions", I deliberately include "versions" in quotes, is that with one you are licensed - with the other you are not. ie. one is like the mp3 bought at iTunes the other downloaded from a p2p, digitally identical all the same though.
or is my logic flawed?
either way a beautiful font.
- rasko40
sorry dad, I'll slap their wrists.
- Typographica0
Does not sound like a legitimate copy to me.
- rasko40
I'm freelancing at an agency and its on the system so I dont know it's origins, maybe it's some kind of demo set or something? The characters are there on NeoTech regular but not the others.
It made me weep it did. I always enjoy finding nice fonts to use and even more so getting others to pay for them. Chevin being my most recent accquisition, thanks client :)
- Typographica0
This incomplete character set is news to me. This is a professional font family so all the basics should be there. From whom did you buy it, if I may ask? Ours works fine here.
- Nairn0
I give up.
My s'ware doesn't open the file, so i can't convert. I can't use a demo of convertor s'ware and swap the glyphs as there're too many iterations, and I can't [for the life of me] work out how to use 'cygwin' to get fontforge to work on my computer.
So, like you, rasko - i've just changed the font.
P'ah.
(one I own, you'll be happy to hear, typo! :)
- rasko40
not so eager to answer a question about a flakey font as you are to point someone to a buy our fonts link eh Typo?
;)
- rasko40
on a mac btw Nairn
- rasko40
I'm on a mac, I wanted to use font on a project and thanks to the shittiness of whoever put it together (nice design tho) or the shittiness of something I had to change all plans after creating stylesheets etc only to later discover the missing/faulty characters, so I switched it all out for Rekyavik.
Any explanation Typografica? You did after all vote this one of your fave fonts of last year or something..
- Nairn0
How curious.
I convinced a friend to go with Neotech for a catalogue, only to realise just yesterday that my special chars aren't showing up in Illy.
The font set contains them - they're just not displaying in Illy. Which is, to say the least, a pain in the arse.
After lunch I'll see if I can fix it (wondering whether my setup's too old to handle OpenType properly - might try converting the OT to TT... Are you on PC or Mac there, Rasko?)