Brick by Brick, the FontStruct Blog

The FontStruct Blog

Google Fonts sponsors FontStruct in 2018

News | | March 15th, 2018

Dear FontStructors,

Today, with FontStruct’s tenth anniversary imminent, we’re delighted to announce that Google Fonts will be our principal sponsor in 2018.

Introducing the SIL Open Font License

As part of their sponsorship, Google Fonts are helping us to implement a new open-source licensing option on FontStruct – The SIL Open Font License (OFL) – which we’re adding to FontStruct today:

Choose OFL

The OFL is an open-source license, designed specifically for open-source fonts, and is suitable for designers who would like to make their work freely available with zero restrictions on use, modification or distribution.

Contribute to Google Fonts

But this is more than just another option in the licensing menu.

The OFL is the preferred license for contributions to Google Fonts’ renowned and robust directory of open-source, designer, web fonts; so it’s just become much, much easier to contribute your designs directly from FontStruct to Google Fonts. 

Contribute to Google Fonts

At time of writing, there are few (if any?) modular, grid-based fonts on Google Fonts. We’re eager to see the first FontStructions appearing on fonts.google.com in 2018, and we hope that some of you will soon be enjoying the massive, global exposure and the state-of-the-art, zero-cost, webfont-delivery service that Google Fonts provides.

How can I contribute my FontStruction to Google Fonts?

To get started, your FontStruction needs to fulfil a few basic criteria, including:

  • It must be an original design, and of good quality (the ultimate judges of this are the Google Fonts team).
  • It must be licensed under the OFL.
  • It must contain, as a minimum, the 215 glyphs listed by Google. (with the exception of the last 3). You’ll notice these glyphs are now listed as a special character set in the FontStructor.
  • It must have a simple and unique name, with no copyright or trademark infringements, no initials and no abbreviations.

Once everything is ready, you can use the new “Contribute to Google Fonts” button on your FontStruction homepage to start the contribution process.

Helpful Resources

You will find a new section in our FAQ with a detailed, step-by-step guide to help you get started with contributing your FontStruction to Google fonts. Please read this guide thoroughly before proceeding. There’s also a dedicated contact channel for any further questions on this topic.

We’re looking forward to a very exciting year.

Happy FontStructing!

 


FontStruct would like to thank our sponsors: Google Fonts – Making the web more beautiful, fast, and open through great typography, and Creative Fabrica – your number #1 source for premium design elements.


12 Comments

  1. galoreporter

    List Complete, OFL selected, but…
    Not run “Contribute to Google Fonts”…

    galoreporter — March 15, 2018 #

  2. geneus1

    This is awesome, meek! I was just noticing how there weren’t many modular fonts on Google, when I noticed the new “Google Fonts Basic” category on the bottom of the Fontstructor. Exciting news! Welcome, Google Fonts!

    geneus1 — March 15, 2018 #

  3. Rob Meek (meek)

    @galoreporter Please contact us about your issue, letting us now which design you’re working on. Thanks!

    Rob Meek (meek) — March 15, 2018 #

  4. galoreporter

    @meek view

    last image in  https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1501617/galube

    galoreporter — March 15, 2018 #

  5. ETHproductions

    Wonderful news! I hope our partnership with Google Fonts works out very well. Their archive is probably one of the most selective (858 fonts at the moment) and most used on the internet, so it’s amazing to be able to submit FontStructions directly to Google. Are FontStructions that make it into their archive going to be distinguished in any way on their site?

    Also, thank you very much for building the required charset into the FontStructor. I did notice that space appears twice (I believe the second one should be U+00A0, NBSP) and a few characters toward the end don’t seem to have names.

    ETHproductions — March 15, 2018 #

  6. Rob Meek (meek)

    @galoreporter Thanks for pointing out the issue. It should now be resolved. Could you try again? If you have further technical issues please use the contact form. Thanks!

    Rob Meek (meek) — March 16, 2018 #

  7. Rob Meek (meek)

    @Eth Thanks for your kind words! You touch on several interesting points.

    I’d like to underline the fact that Google Fonts are sponsoring FontStruct this year, in particular with helping us to introduce the OFL to FontStruct. We are hugely grateful to them and to our other sponsors. It’s absolutely not a “partnership” though, and FontStruct remains completely independent.

    Also, I personally wouldn’t expect or wish the Google Fonts repository to shift their quality bar for FontStructions in any way. With the addition of the new license and the submit button to FontStruct we’re making it a lot easier, especially for less technical FontStructors, to submit contributions to Google Fonts, but those contributions will still be reviewed for quality – which is one reason why seeking peer review for your work is important before you contribute.

    (It’s been possible for anyone to submit any design to Google Fonts for several years now, by following the latter’s publicly-documented process, so we’re not opening a completely new door, we’re just making it easier to find, and offering you help in getting there).

     

    Rob Meek (meek) — March 16, 2018 #

  8. Rob Meek (meek)

    @Eth also thanks for pointing out the issue with the new character set. I will investigate.

    Rob Meek (meek) — March 16, 2018 #

  9. galoreporter

    @meek Okay, it worked.

    galoreporter — March 16, 2018 #

  10. ETHproductions

    Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding—that’s what I get for writing a response late at night! I’d like to give a huge thank you to Google Fonts for their sponsorship—it’s fantastic that they’ve stepped up to let us continue using this amazing website for free.

    It’s also great that they’ve made their metaphorical door for font submission more visible/convenient, if not more open. I wasn’t expecting them to lower the bar for FontStructions compared to other fonts; that would be greatly unfair to designers using other tools. What I meant to ask was if there will be a badge or similar displayed on FS-made fonts in their archive, but your comment makes it clear that the “Contribute to Google Fonts” button is just an easier route to submitting the files to Google Fonts, not a substantially different route.

    ETHproductions — March 16, 2018 #

  11. Rob Meek (meek)

    @Eth no worries. I didn’t mean to jump on your completely reasonable comment ;-)

    Rob Meek (meek) — March 16, 2018 #

  12. KyooshiFonts

    sounds good!

    KyooshiFonts — March 20, 2018 #