This dude on the right is Dave Crossland, Typography activist. He travels around the world promoting software freedom development mainly tailored to typography. He runs workshops on the subject, much like the one I attended.
Dave is currently working in partnership with Google to create Google Font; an open font library which aims to collate web-typography and hold 95% of all web typography on its database including other writing systems outside the heavily used Latin. They are trying to encourage designers to create non-Latin typefaces as currently, there is a very small amount of other typefaces.
On top of this he is also involved in FontForge,a piece of open source software that aids a designer in creating typefaces by using a step by step process that is easily laid out and makes creating font an easy process.
He spoke about many things during his workshop but these are the points I found interesting . .
> Moors Law - Crunching computer prices.
> The GNU Project - The evolution of the UNIX operating system that was portable and able to run on any computer.
> UNIX - The UNIX philosophy is of a modular design and is likened to that of Apple OSX software and Linux software.
> Kernel - The keystone piece that connects the Hardwre to the Software.
> Adobe Garamond Premier Pro - Adobe's font library containing thousands of fonts(Google Font's closest competitor BUT let's be honest, Its Google; Who would compete and win against the giant?)
> Wikipedia Project - The first example of mass software freedom development.
> Richard Stallman - A free software activist who pioneered the movement.
Dave Crossland - Workshop[8/10/2013]
Google Font is a database of fonts that people (mostly designers) have created and Google have purchased to add to their database. It seems to have been received well by the public but I personally think the database needs to be much more broader because currently there is only around 650 fonts available compared to its older sister, dafont.com.
FontForge
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1. David taught us a effective and easier way of rendering and designing font. The first step was to take a soft pencil (I used graphite) and shade the shape of your font instead of going in with a heavy line. This method of shading then allowed me to accurately judge to shape I wanted without setting anything in stone.
2. I then took the shaded shape and defined it. I defined it by looking at the shape and working out which bits I wanted to keep and what areas were either to wide thin, in proportion and out of proportion.
3. The last step I shaded in the final shape of my letter and made it solid so it looked more like a letter form.
I then took the drawing I did and tried to re-create it in FontForge using the various tools. The furthest window in the above print screen is the grid where each letter/ character you make is added to that characters correlating space on the grid and the closest window is me creating the first letter of my typeface.