Libre font design workshops

Since 2013, Manufactura Independente have been developing a set of workshops dedicated to type design by means of bitmap fonts and F/LOSS development methodologies.

The Type:Bits workshops have been hosted in Barcelona, London, Tomelloso, Avilés and Graz. If you are interested in hosting one of these, do get in touch through our e-mail address: hi [at] manufacturaindependente [dot] org

About the workshops

The main objective of each Type:Bits workshop is to collaboratively develop at least one finished font in the course of a few hours.

To achieve this, we focus on bitmap fonts, which are ideal to introduce design restraints and facilitate the explanation and application of basic type design concepts. We also employ a custom font format that facilitates collective design, and approach the font design process by using non-conventional means of designing typefaces, from plain text files to games.

Free/Libre and open source software development practices are the base of many of the principles behind these workshops. Not only do we exclusively employ free/libre tools, many libre software development practices form the base of the workshop's structure.

The backbone of what makes this collaborative design pipeline is Git, namely through the GitLab platform, allowing everyone to work together and see results immediately.

You can read more about the principles and methodology behind Type:Bits, see and download the fonts made in past workshops. There is also documentation about the more technical aspects behind the type design workflow: the BMF font format, how to start and build font files, and how GitLab is used to sync work and generate font files and specimens.