December 15, 2025 at 9:00:07 PM UTC

	Since	posts	replies	likes	reposts and quotes	views
Bluesky	May 2023	1,039	8,236	23,127	2,380
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GitHub	Jul 2010	179	5,777 3,520	33,866	3,317
npm	Jul 2014	139	1,546			75,991,720
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Blog	Nov 2025	20
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All	Jul 2010	4,807	37,967	114,394	22,517	76,024,433

Currently wondering what it feels like to work so hard on an open-licensed typeface only to have it co-opted by very terrible and very famous people as part of their core brand identity.

Also posted to Bluesky.

12 replies

Kyle Shevlin (he/him) Bluesky 19 min later

Reading this made me think of companies that have done the opposite: branded with a typeface made with a problematic designer.

About 15 years ago I did some work for a company using Gill Sans, and boy was I not ready to learn about the designer.
1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 21 min later
  
  Wikipedia casually dropping “Germany during the late 1920s” without additional context is *wild*
Konnor Rogers Mastodon 43 min later

@zachleat big ooooffffs in the chat for this one.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-12-14/the-trump-administration-frames-its-second-term-in-serif-fonts
“Speaking for myself, I was disappointed to see the Trump administration adopt it,” Egstad writes. “Using a freely available and open-source font to promote exclusionary policies is deeply ironic.”
1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 46 min later
  
  @konnorrogers great find!!
Private reply Mastodon 3 hr later
Private reply Bluesky 3 hr later
1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 17 hr later
  
  fonts.google.com/specimen/Ins...
Andy McMillan Mastodon 9 hr later

@zachleat I’ve been thinking about this too! The irony of it coming from a Portland agency as well.
1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 17 hr later
  
  @andymcmillan we need better licensing models across the board
Koos Mastodon 10 hr later

@zachleat I would definitely consider adding ligatures that turn unquoted MAGA phrases into poop emoji.
1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 17 hr later
  
  @koos ahahaha
James Wallbank Mastodon January 15, 2026

@zachleat Hot take (from someone who's been a passionate supporter of open licenses, and thinks they're better than proprietary licenses).
By default, open licenses help the powerful more than they help the powerless. Why? Because they're applied to technology. And technology multiplies potential, it doesn't add it.
To develop technology that's disproportionately advantageous to "the little guy", you need to design that in, not just open license something and hope for the best.