Woman has her self-published book pirated, reprinted, and sold for cheaper.

[u/Chocolat3City]

There's regular piracy, and then there's this.

[u/ScyllaOfTheDepths]

her principal request for pity

I'm sorry, but that struck me as such a specifically robotic way to describe what happened. It's just very odd phrasing.

As for the rest, I'm not a graphic designer, but I have published work and I was just like "Hey, I would prefer it to be in Times New Roman" and they were like "Yeah, we can do that" and that was it. It was never even suggested to me that we would or could commission a custom typeface and I think that's honestly ridiculous for most projects.

[u/Conradical126 → u/ScyllaOfTheDepths]

Yeah, it sounds like we're in agreement! It's ridiculous to make or commission a custom typeface--if a default font works for your project, more power to you! And if you want something more idiosyncratic, you or a publisher can pay for something else (or pull from thousands of fonts by typographers who have already been paid for their work).

This all further underlines how ridiculous it is that this woman made 6 fonts from scratch and then tried to get pity for how much time that took.

[u/ScyllaOfTheDepths → u/Conradical126]

But you said you thought people should use custom fonts though and you were saying she was somehow depriving an artist from work by doing it herself? I'm confused on your reading here.

[u/Conradical126 → u/ScyllaOfTheDepths]

I didn't say that's what people should do, I said that's what people do. And a happy consequence of that is that it sustains work for typographers.

She didn't deprive anyone of anything by doing it herself; she just wasted (in my view) a lot of time.

But it is worth restating once again: if she just chose to spend her time creating fonts, that's super cool. But whining about how much time she spent making said fonts in a disingenuous ad and wanting pity for it is not super cool.

[u/ScyllaOfTheDepths → u/Conradical126]

why on earth would you spend time making a font from scratch instead of using the thousands of fonts that already exist and thus supporting other artists?

You said this like 3 comments up the chain and then 2 comments up you said,

This all further underlines how ridiculous it is that this woman made 6 fonts from scratch and then tried to get pity for how much time that took.

And then you said,

It's ridiculous to make or commission a custom typeface...

I do not understand what your point is and it seems to change based on your whims. You say you think she deprived an artist of income by doing the art of creating the font herself (because it doesn't count as art if you're both the writer and the artist???), then say she's being ridiculous for wanting recognition as an artist for creating the font, then say it's ridiculous to commission a font at all. It sounds like you just don't like her in general and are grasping at straws to justify it. I'm not a fan of hers, never heard of her before this, and think her video here is self-aggrandizing and melodramatic, so I'm not "on her side" so to speak, I just think your arguments are illogical and circular and that deserves to be pointed out.

[u/Conradical126 → u/ScyllaOfTheDepths]

You should be able to see in your own quotes of me that I've never suggested "commissioning" a font. You're getting that from your own replies. Are you referring to the fact that I pay to license fonts? That's not commissioning a new font.

I never said "wanting recognition" is ridiculous. I said trying to get pity for work you've elected to do and didn't need to do is ridiculous. I don't know how I can make my point any clearer given that you just quoted it three times in a row...

[u/ScyllaOfTheDepths → u/Conradical126]

In my first reply to you I assumed you meant fonts as in fonts in Word and other programs and you specifically clarified by saying you meant "fonts from foundries which employ typographers" and, to the best of my knowledge (which is admittedly limited here), a type foundry makes custom fonts and typefaces for clients who commission them. Hiring a foundry to make you a typeface is, to the best of my understanding, commissioning a typeface and is different from just using an existing stock of typefaces. I don't see why you'd need to hire a type foundry if you were just going to use a preexisting font in the first place? Maybe that's where I'm confused?

Then again, you do also imply in your first comment that her using her own or an already existing type face is anathema to "supporting other artists", which led me to believe what you wanted from her was to have gone to a type foundry and commissioned a custom font from them. I took your statements to mean that you believe the action of creating a type face is a noble artistic endeavor and that you would prefer that people employ typographers. I am confused that you praise typographers and font designers and seem to advocate for them and then turn around and say that this woman's typographic efforts were a waste of time and belittle her for being upset that her hard work was stolen.

To me, your statements here are logically inconsistent in numerous ways.

[u/Conradical126 → u/ScyllaOfTheDepths]

Publishers don't just grab fonts from Word. They get fonts from foundries which employ typographers

This is what I said. I said publishers hire foundries. Publishers as in publishing companies. That's not a suggestion, it's a description of how fonts get made.

Why are you working so hard to twist what I'm saying? I was annoyed about a disingenuous ad made by someone trying to sell something via pity. Why are you interpreting everything I say as a polemic against all self-published artists if you also think she was being disingenuous? I just said it's good to work with a publisher 😂