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@@ -0,0 +1,141 @@ +FONTLOG for Cantarell GNOME 0.0.5 +================================= + +This file provides detailed information on the Cantarell font +software. This information should be distributed along with the +Cantarell fonts and any derivative works. + +Font Information +------------------------- + +The Cantarell typeface family is a contemporary Humanist +sans serif, and is used by the GNOME project for its user +interface and the Fedora project. + +Cantarell was originally designed by Dave Crossland as part +of his coursework for the MA Typeface Design programme at +the Department of Typography in the University of Reading, +England. [1] + +Dave was motivated to undertake a study of typeface design because +he believes it is essential that when we use digital tools, our +freedom to use, understand, modify and share these tools is +respected. Otherwise, when the tool does not work in the way +that we need, we will be unable to fix it. + +These fonts are developed using only such "libre" software, +mainly FontForge [2]. + +Cantarell was originally aimed at on-screen reading in a specific +use-case and environment: reading web pages on an HTC Dream +mobile phone [3]. + +That device was the first to ship with Google Android [4], and +came installed with a web browser that supported the exciting web +fonts feature known as @font-face [5]. As Dave's very first typeface +design, the typeface has many faults, yet he asserts it achieves +his goal of improving readability on this device. + +The regular member of the family has had recieved the most focus, and a bold +family has been developed quickly to provide better somewhat better results +that an operating system's automatic bolding. In the case of oblique, we +decided to rely on the system generated variant for now. An actual italics +variant is planned. + +The Regular font fully supports the following writing systems: +Basic Latin, Western European, Catalan, Baltic, Turkish, Central +European, Dutch and Afrikaans. To date, Pan African Latin has +only 33% glyph coverage. + +Since the design is aimed at display on-screen at small sizes, the +printed output (especially of the bold and oblique) may not work +well. Fonts tuned to the needs of printing will be developed in +the future. + +The fonts were initially published on the 6th of July 2009 on +Dave Crossland's foundry website [6] under the terms of the GNU +General Public License version 3. [7] In May 2010 the fonts were +republished through Google Web Fonts [8] under the terms of the +SIL Open Font License version 1.1. [9] In November 2010 the +project became part of the GNOME project and is now under active +development by the GNOME design community. [10] + +Dave Crossland, 21st March 2011 + +[1]: http://www.typedesign.reading.ac.uk +[2]: http://fontforge.sf.net +[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream +[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28operating_system%29 +[5]: http://openfontlibrary.org/wiki/Web_font_linking_with_%40font-face +[6]: http://abattis.org/cantarell +[7]: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html +[8]: http://www.google.com/webfonts +[9]: http://scripts.sil.org/OFL +[10]: http://live.gnome.org/CantarellFonts + + * * * + +Developer information +--------------------- + +The original src/Cantarell-Regular.sfd file has the master sources +as Cubic (PostScript) Bezier splines. There are temporary layers +and a 'Spiro' layer in this file, containing forms used to create +the master Cubic Bezier glyphs; the Spiro layer contains forms in +Spiro splines, and much of the original typeface design by Dave +Crossland was done by drawing in Spiro splines. However today the +master drawing spline format is Cubic Bezier, and Spiro splines +are used to inform their creation. + +The Cantarell-Regular.sfd file is the _master_ source, and was +used to generate the Cantarell-Bold.sfd which is now a hard fork. + +All development occurs by making changes to these drawing files. +When OTF or TTF binaries are compiled, they are copied to the +Cantarell-*-OTF.sfd and Cantarell-*-TTF.sfd files and then a +build process applied. + +This means that there should be a 1:1 match between these files, +the OTF and TTF files in the otf/ and ttf/ directories, and the +output of generating new OTF and TTF files from FontForge. + +The build process is simple; the Spiro and temp layers are removed, +in the case of TTF files all layers are converted to Quadratic from +Cubic, and then all glyphs have the Simplify, Add Extrema, Round +to Int, and Correct Direction operations applied. + +In the future a build script will be developed to do this in an +automated way, which will be important for adding OpenType +Layout features through a feature.fea file. + +ChangeLog +------------------------- + +Please refer to the GNOME Git repository changelog at this URL: + +http://git.gnome.org/browse/cantarell-fonts/log/ + +Acknowledgements +------------------------- + +Here is a list of major contributors; all contributors are listed +in the GNOME Git repository changelogs. + +If you make major modifications be sure to add your name (N), email (E), +web-address (W) and description (D). This list is sorted by last name +in alphabetical order. + +N: Jakub Steiner +E: jimmac@gmail.com +W: http://jimmac.musichall.cz +D: Designer - many improvements and GNOME standards engineering + +N: Dave Crossland +E: dave@understandinglimited.com +W: http://abattis.org/cantarell/ +D: Designer - original Latin glyphs + +N: Erik Hartenian +E: infinality@infinality.net +W: http://infinality.net +D: Connoisseur of fine font renderding |