An Open Letter About TypeFaces

If there’s one thing that is for sure in the design & development community, it’s the fact that nothing is ever as it seems and every now and again, there will be controversies & unhappiness going around. As a result, I’ve found myself at the center of one of these recent situations.

So herewith follows, an open letter & apology about the cause of this recent, unfortunate situation: TypeFaces.

First off, as leader of the radiiate team, I need to take full responsibility for the whole project, as the idea was mine and I was in charge of the execution thereof. I have no intention of shying away from the public scrutiny that TypeFaces, radiiate & I are under at the moment and I’m content to take all of the flack & criticism that is being directed to our side at present.

Secondly, I’d like to apologize to all of the designers for never asking their consent prior to launching TypeFaces. The project was conceptualized to honour you and it is unfortunate that my own ignorant assumption in this regard, lead me to believe that consent would not be required. Legalities aside (which I - probably,  ignorantly - know nothing about), we should’ve had your blessing irrespective of our good intentions. Sorry for assuming that you’d be cool with it and believing that everyone would regard this is simply a “fun” project that would have no consequence.

Thirdly, to all of the designers featured that I consider friends: sorry for associating you with a project that is receiving bad press. You deserve only respect & admiration and the bad publicity (as it reflects on you) is unwarranted.

Lastly… For me this is a case of learning how not to do things in future. I’m used to not always being liked and have had my share of the odd online controversy in the past; I would however like to believe that every experience has simply allowed me to learn & grow.

There’s a lot more that I *could* say about the project in terms of what inspired it, what our goals / intentions were etc, but I wouldn’t want that to deflect from the sincere apology above (as those things don’t change the fact that I made an ignorant mistake).

Adii

*If you’d like, feel free to read @cobuse’s - one of the radiiate team members - experiences (as a relative newbie) in addition to my letter above.