— Could you talk about yourself and your background? Well, I was using Linux and Open Software for years when I realized I could contribute beside programming (which in fact has never inspire me).
I was student when in 2003 I walked around in Berlin (which is a city of artists and typographers actually) and I was inspired by friends to design some fonts.
In September I then decided to register the Libertine Project at Sourceforge.
— How many people are actually involved in the project? Oh, there are many people helping with bug reports and examples for corrections. Drawing is most often left for me... unfortunately people with design skills for fonts are hard to find.
— It says on linuxlibertine.org that the project started in 2004. In 2003 actually.
— Did the inspiration come to you way before then or did you start the project immediately after acquiring the idea? Well I was checking for tools I coud work with. When I found that Fontforge (it was still call PfaEdit in these days) is a proper tool, I registered the project and started to draw the first Libertine glyphs. It was a process of drawing, learning, comparing and permanent QA.
— The Libertine family is based on Times New Roman. Well, not quite. To be honest I absolutely dislike Times. The Times font was developed in the 1930ies to be readable on cheap, stained paper at weak illumination. It absolutely lacks livelyness and grace and is much overused.
The link to the times is in fact my intention to create a font, that is so generally usable just like the Times. — Are there any other fonts that inspired you? Yes, Janson, Palatino and various modern fonts.
— What is your leitmotiv in the project and, especially, in the design of new characters? I am looking for a renaissance of livelyness in the fonts and I am working on improving the optic with the help of various print-outs. Minority language support is very important to me. There are lots of special characters that aren’t included in even the main fonts of the big companies, because the group needing them is financially not interesting. The African alphabet (en:African reference alphabet or en:Africa Alphabet?) is such a case.
When in 2010 Wikipedia decided to switch its Logo-Font to Libertine because of the wide language support, that was a great success for our project.
— I am one of the people who are waiting for the mono-spaced version. Will this font be based on Biolinum? Do you have any idea of when it might be released? Indeed I am working on a monospaced font. But the necessities for monospaced make it difficult to design a typographically pleasant output. I in fact, I started with a Biolinum fork but then I decided, that I need the Serifs to be able to control the grey values of the glyphs. So I switched to Libertine for that purpose. I think I can publish an alpha version soon.
— Besides the mono-spaced version, do you have any other plans? There is still a lot to do for the Libertine and Biolinum substyles. Some character sets are still unfinished. After I have added a Libertine sub-style for higher grades (the Display variant), I would like to draw a style for small grades (footnotes and captions e.g.).
— Would you like to add anything else? Feel free to say anything. Some people ask for support of opentype’s mathematical/formular functions. This is a special feature where brackets and fractions are set by combination of various different glyphs. I am lacking motivation to make myself acquainted with this special field of typesetting. I would be very happy if there was somebody focusing on a Libertine adaption.
# English version
Posté par Jiehong (site web personnel) . En réponse à la dépêche Linux Libertine : entrevue de Philipp H. Poll. Évalué à 10. Dernière modification le 23 février 2012 à 12:59.
Voici la version en anglais de l'entrevue.
— Could you talk about yourself and your background?
Well, I was using Linux and Open Software for years when I realized I could contribute beside programming (which in fact has never inspire me).
I was student when in 2003 I walked around in Berlin (which is a city of artists and typographers actually) and I was inspired by friends to design some fonts.
In September I then decided to register the Libertine Project at Sourceforge.
— How many people are actually involved in the project?
Oh, there are many people helping with bug reports and examples for corrections. Drawing is most often left for me... unfortunately people with design skills for fonts are hard to find.
— It says on linuxlibertine.org that the project started in 2004.
In 2003 actually.
— Did the inspiration come to you way before then or did you start the project immediately after acquiring the idea?
Well I was checking for tools I coud work with. When I found that Fontforge (it was still call PfaEdit in these days) is a proper tool, I registered the project and started to draw the first Libertine glyphs. It was a process of drawing, learning, comparing and permanent QA.
— The Libertine family is based on Times New Roman.
Well, not quite. To be honest I absolutely dislike Times. The Times font was developed in the 1930ies to be readable on cheap, stained paper at weak illumination. It absolutely lacks livelyness and grace and is much overused.
The link to the times is in fact my intention to create a font, that is so generally usable just like the Times.
— Are there any other fonts that inspired you?
Yes, Janson, Palatino and various modern fonts.
— What is your leitmotiv in the project and, especially, in the design of new characters?
I am looking for a renaissance of livelyness in the fonts and I am working on improving the optic with the help of various print-outs. Minority language support is very important to me. There are lots of special characters that aren’t included in even the main fonts of the big companies, because the group needing them is financially not interesting. The African alphabet (en:African reference alphabet or en:Africa Alphabet?) is such a case.
When in 2010 Wikipedia decided to switch its Logo-Font to Libertine because of the wide language support, that was a great success for our project.
— I am one of the people who are waiting for the mono-spaced version. Will this font be based on Biolinum? Do you have any idea of when it might be released?
Indeed I am working on a monospaced font. But the necessities for monospaced make it difficult to design a typographically pleasant output. I in fact, I started with a Biolinum fork but then I decided, that I need the Serifs to be able to control the grey values of the glyphs. So I switched to Libertine for that purpose. I think I can publish an alpha version soon.
— Besides the mono-spaced version, do you have any other plans?
There is still a lot to do for the Libertine and Biolinum substyles. Some character sets are still unfinished. After I have added a Libertine sub-style for higher grades (the Display variant), I would like to draw a style for small grades (footnotes and captions e.g.).
— Would you like to add anything else? Feel free to say anything.
Some people ask for support of opentype’s mathematical/formular functions. This is a special feature where brackets and fractions are set by combination of various different glyphs. I am lacking motivation to make myself acquainted with this special field of typesetting. I would be very happy if there was somebody focusing on a Libertine adaption.