{"id":3731,"date":"2021-03-04T03:39:20","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T10:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/?p=3731"},"modified":"2021-03-04T05:16:20","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T12:16:20","slug":"supporting-fontstruct-introducing-fs-patrons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/2021\/03\/04\/supporting-fontstruct-introducing-fs-patrons\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting FontStruct: Introducing FS Patrons"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3732\" style=\"width: 935px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/all-fontstructors.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3732\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3732\" src=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/all-fontstructors.png\" alt=\"The FontStructors\" width=\"925\" height=\"375\" data-wp-pid=\"3732\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3732\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/fontstructions\/show\/836734\/hcfontstructors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">HCFontstructors<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/fontstructors\/929485\/macossin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">macossin<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Dear FontStructors,<\/p>\n<p>FontStruct \u2013 our website, our modular font editor \u2013 has always been free to use, and <strong>FontStruct will remain free to use for everyone.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thanks to our generous sponsors, past and present (thank you <a href=\"https:\/\/glyphsapp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Glyphs App<\/a>!), and to our advertisers, we have secure funding to keep the bricks flowing through 2021 and beyond.<\/p>\n<p><em>But,<\/em> as this blog post hopes to explain, we have reached a point where we need to look at how the project supports itself financially, in order to keep moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>Today, to try and address our funding challenge, we\u2019re introducing a new micro-sponsorship scheme called \u201cFS Patrons\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>By contributing a small sum (5\u20ac \/ month, or 55\u20ac annually) you can become what we\u2019re calling an \u201cFS Patron\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Sold already?! You can subscribe <a href=\"\/patron\/subscribe\">here<\/a>. Unsure? Read on \u2026<\/p>\n<h3>The benefits of being an FS Patron<\/h3>\n<p>As an FS Patron, aside from revelling in the happy knowledge that you are directly supporting the FontStruct, you will receive a few tangible and guaranteed benefits:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No adverts<\/li>\n<li>No nag-screens (We are introducing these for certain FontStruct pages. They will remind you about FS Patrons. You will notice them soon).<\/li>\n<li>Optionally, an initimable badge of honour for your avatar.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We also plan to reserve <strong>some new features exclusively for Patrons<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>For example, from today, we will be offering new download settings, including the option of <strong>OpenType CFF downloads,<\/strong> for Patrons only (you can <a href=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/2021\/03\/04\/opentype-downloads-with-cff-outlines\/\">read more<\/a> about this exciting development in <a href=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/2021\/03\/04\/opentype-downloads-with-cff-outlines\/\">a separate blog post<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>As time goes on, and as additional new features are added, we hope that exclusive features will be opened up to the rest of the community. In this way, \u201cFS Patrons\u201d is intended to function as a kind of early-access\/preview programme. You may be familiar with this kind of model if you use \u201cPatreon\u201d \u2013 where creators release material exclusively and early to their patrons, before a subsequent public release.<\/p>\n<h3>Why does FontStruct need FS Patrons?<\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_3734\" style=\"width: 935px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/top-pick-starfish.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3734\" class=\"wp-image-3734 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/top-pick-starfish.png\" alt=\"Staff Pick Starfish\" width=\"925\" height=\"575\" data-wp-pid=\"3734\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3734\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u2013 <em>Asterias Fontstructi<\/em> commonly known as \u201cStaff pick stars\u201d, pictured in their natural environment. Considered a delicacy by FontStructors, they are in fact a common species. While easy to find, they can prove perilous for staff to gather. Their brittle, razor-sharp points, and their preference for the slipperiest of rock pools necessitates the wearing of thick gloves and expensive footwear. Best harvested shortly after high-tide. Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@brian_yuri?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brian Yurasits<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>FontStruct is busy all year-round, 24\/7, with FontStructors from all around the globe: from school and college students to budding amateur typographers and established designers.<\/p>\n<p>Browsing through the amazing archive of modular typography that\u2019s accumulated in the <a href=\"\/gallery\">gallery<\/a> is a daily joy. We are boundlessly proud of everything that the FontStruct community has achieved over the last 12+ years.<\/p>\n<p>We have welcomed over 1.5 million registered users to the site, and there are over 1.8 million FontStructions great and small adorning the database. That\u2019s a total of almost <strong>50 million glyphs<\/strong>!<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 These are some quite big numbers \u2013 A great crowd of people, and a great heap of data to administer and care for.<\/p>\n<p>For the FontStruct staff there are always support mails waiting for an answer, servers to maintain and content to moderate. We have hosting and CDN bills to pay. We have bugs to fix.<\/p>\n<p>In an ideal world, we would not only busy ourselves with maintenance and support. We would also spend time designing, developing and delivering <em>new<\/em> features, improving our users\u2019 experience, writing new blog posts, updating our documentation, running competitions and investing time in moderating site content. We <em>are<\/em> doing all these things \u2013 but, because of our very limited resources, we can only do so slowly and patchily.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3736\" style=\"width: 935px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fresh-pixel-bricks.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3736\" class=\"wp-image-3736 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fresh-pixel-bricks.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"925\" height=\"498\" data-wp-pid=\"3736\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3736\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pixel bricks are not a natural product. Mixed according to a secret recipe and baked each night in industrial trays, they need to cool to room temperature before being fed into through the precision cutting machines. Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@mocaandrew?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrew Moca<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>The truth is that the \u201cFontStruct Staff\u201d does not really exist. While FontStruct has many kind friends who continue to help and support us in one way or another, and of course there is the wonderful \u201cwe\u201d of the FontStructor community, there is no real \u201cwe\u201d here at FontStruct towers. Since 2010, I (Rob Meek) have run FontStruct as a personal project from wherever I am, usually from a room in my flat. I\u2019m sitting there now on a late Sunday afternoon, writing this blog post, having spent most of the day so far making some very silly pictures of imaginary brick harvests.<\/p>\n<p>But FontStruct is not a one-person show. It\u2019s less than that. Because FontStruct brings in no significant revenue, and in order to actually pay the bills, I need to spend the majority of my time doing work that has nothing directly to do with FontStruct. For example, working as the lead developer for the wonderful <a href=\"https:\/\/fontsinuse.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fonts In Use<\/a>, as well as for the excellent new type foundry <a href=\"https:\/\/fontwerk.com\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fontwerk<\/a>. I also regularily work freelance for the design agency <a href=\"https:\/\/cdlx.de\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CDLX<\/a>. \u2013 These are all great jobs which I enjoy but I have other clients as well and I could happily drop some of them. \u2013 So, in reality, the human resources available to this project are very thin indeed.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d like to work more for FontStruct, more frequently and I\u2019d like to be paid for some of it. That\u2019s why I\u2019m launching \u201cFS Patrons\u201d.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3738\" style=\"width: 935px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/circle-brick-harvest.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3738\" class=\"wp-image-3738 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/circle-brick-harvest.png\" alt=\"Harvesting Circle Bricks\" width=\"925\" height=\"585\" data-wp-pid=\"3738\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3738\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u2013 Circle bricks are actually a perfectly spherical fruit, best harvested in the early morning. Only the ripest, roundest examples are good enough for the FontStructor. Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@bambicorro?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bambi Corro<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<h3>But don\u2019t worry!<\/h3>\n<p>All things considered, with or without \u201cFS Patrons\u201d, our project remains healthy. Technically we are in a reasonable place, and we will continue to manage well with the limited funding we currently enjoy. Personally I continue to love most of the work I am able to do on the project, so I\u2019m not going to walk away \u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2026 but, given more funding, I would be able to dedicate some more time to FontStruct, and work on more new features, such as, for example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>improving the way we present character sets<\/li>\n<li>extending unicode support<\/li>\n<li>adding layers<\/li>\n<li>supporting colour fonts<\/li>\n<li>supporting custom bricks<\/li>\n<li>supporting some OpenType features<\/li>\n<li>adding real support for non-latin scripts<\/li>\n<li>sorting out the abysmal gallery search<\/li>\n<li>updating the site design<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u2013 All these things will take a long time to implement, with or without additional funding, but your support can help to accelerate the process.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you\u2019d like and if you can (I know times are tough for many!), please consider <a href=\"\/patron\/subscribe\">becoming an FS Patron<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you!<\/p>\n<p>Rob Meek<\/p>\n<p>Founder and Lead Developer of FontStruct.<\/p>\n<h3>One Last Thing<\/h3>\n<p>If you haven\u2019t done so yet, please <a href=\"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/2021\/03\/04\/opentype-downloads-with-cff-outlines\/\">read about our new OpenType download feature<\/a>, exclusive to FS Patrons.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear FontStructors, FontStruct \u2013 our website, our modular font editor \u2013 has always been free to use, and FontStruct will remain free to use for everyone. Thanks to our generous sponsors, past and present (thank you Glyphs App!), and to our advertisers, we have secure funding to keep the bricks flowing through 2021 and beyond. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3731"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3762,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3731\/revisions\/3762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}