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Non-Fonts Objects?

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After several months of collective reflection and debate, VTF is now offering a new kind of publication. We call them Non-Font Objects.

The creation of Velvetyne ten years ago was an impetus to free up practices. Emancipation from a tradition of perfection, asceticism and readability. It was also a celebration of liberated formalism, collective work, of reclaimed spontaneity and perfectibility aesthetics.
For French typography, it was a full-blown entrance into the open-source movement, the adoption of free licenses, the proudly waved flag of authors who work for the commons.

10 years later, the planet is crushed under the weights, foundries are multiplying and questions arise. Do we really need new typefaces to feed the growth of an infinite corpus as our ecosystems crack? To encourage the consumption of digital products, even if they’re free? Is the role of a foundry in 2020 simply to push fonts to the world, fill up its catalog or any space available and for how long?

Thus, we change our tune.

On the one hand, we have transformed our type publications policy. Our releases are no longer the product of a disheveled formalism but the expression of our convictions: plurality of scripts, representativeness of genres and cultures, forms stemming from uses and needs. And we think the resulting designs will be even crazier and more grounded in life.

On the other hand, we now alternate our font publications with objects that aren’t fonts. We might not know if the world needs new typefaces, but we do know that it needs more tools for creation, sharing, reflections, and, more simply, nudges that nourish desires for the future and collective visions.

So we welcome NFO #1, let us all greet the Velvetyne Fellowship Licence.