exljbris Font Foundry produces and shares high quality typography: Delicious, Fontin, Fontin Sans, Tallys, Fertigo Pro, Diavlo, Anivers, Museo, Museo Sans, Museo Slab & Calluna. Based in Arnhem in the Netherlands and founded by Jos Buivenga, Art Director and type designer, well-known for his quality free fonts.

Very interesting his answer to the question Why do you give most of your typefaces away for free?, in an interview published on “I love typography*”.

There wasn’t really a plan when I made my first typeface Delicious. Because I didn’t study type design, the real challenge was to explore all caveats and find proper solutions to come up with a reasonable looking, working font of my own. Selling it never crossed my mind … It just felt great when people liked it or wanted to use it. It was only after 10 years when I decided to make another face. Fontin still was a typographic exploration which I rather liked to share with people. rather than sell it to them—because I didn’t consider myself a real type designer. Shortly after I finished Fontin my fonts got listed at Vitaly Friedman’s “25 Best Free Quality Fonts” and that’s when things really took off. Many people got to know me and my free fonts and the responses were heart-warming.
Because I had a job and I didn’t have to earn money from my type design hobby, I found it very comfortable to give my fonts away. I could just do what I wanted. No need to create something like extra weights of more italics because of a foundry demanding them. No deadlines… I felt as free as my fonts.

Tags: Design, Free knowledge, Typography