Font Awesome - Black Tie (Kick Starter)

Chris D

Chris D

XenForo developer
Staff member
So the developer of Font Awesome, Dave Gandy, is developing a new project called Black Tie. It is essentially a re-write of Font Awesome:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/232193852/font-awesome-black-tie

I know a lot of people are using Font Awesome and I think most people who do will find this new project interesting.

There are various goals and rewards. If he gets funded $200,000 then he will build a custom icon subsetting tool which will allow you to only include the CSS and font icons that your site uses. I think that would be a fantastic feature.

I'm pledging a bit towards the project. If you use Font Awesome at the moment, support the guy who made it and support the next incarnation of the product.
 
Not seeing much in there for development use yet but I do see they just changed how a license will work. Instead of having to buy a license per domain they are going to allow unlimited use license.

Probably something I will look at in the future more and will think about backing it but as of this post I have not yet.

License

ffafb832d7400f888154fec965c67fbb_large.png

Update: By popular demand, I've changed the terms of the Black Tie license to allow broader use!

Once you purchase a license, you can now use Black Tie on as many sites as you like (but you're not allowed to distribute)! Questions? Definitely drop me a note.
Click to expand...
 
Not my place to tell people where they should spend their money, but I have personally pledged $29 and I will probably keep doing that sporadically until their targets are met. That ensures I will get a few licenses and styles plus also allow me to show my gratitude for what Font Awesome is today and how it has enhanced the current products.

Obviously from our point of view it is going to be tricky because we can currently "redistribute" Font Awesome so we can include it freely in our styles and products and that won't be possible with this being a commercial product. I'm guessing there will eventually be some sort of development license available eventually. But, we could always develop a joint solution that would allow people to use either FA or BT in our products (providing they have a valid BT license themselves).
 
Pro: More new icons
Con: Likely no more updates to font awesome
Con: It's a commercial font kit, and given how long it took for FontAwesome to fix their license the first time around, you can bet you wont get redistribution rights without paying a hefty fee.

It's hyped up a lot, but to be honest I don't see this as a good move right now, at least not until more info is provided on licensing and the future of the current FontAwesome project.
 
Yea it could still be easy enough to integrate it into styles and add-ons. With how a majority of our style properties are set up for FA it would most likely work for people out of the box, simple fill in the blank with the correct 'fa-icon-name'.

I'm definitely not ruling out contributing, and would likely use this for my own projects.
 
He's already messing with the license again:

License

ffafb832d7400f888154fec965c67fbb_large.png

Update: By popular demand, I've changed the terms of the Black Tie license to allow broader use!

Once you purchase a license, you can now use Black Tie on as many sites as you like (but you're not allowed to distribute)! Questions? Definitely drop me a note.
Click to expand...
 
That was quoted by Steve above, already.

"Messing with" sounds negative. Seems like a positive change to me.
 
Chris D said:
That was quoted by Steve above, already.

"Messing with" sounds negative. Seems like a positive change to me.
Click to expand...
It must be a locale thing, messing around generally means (around here anyways) that changes are being made until the person finds the happy place with no 100% concrete 'this is the answer' so from my POV I don't see the negative connotations but see what you mean in the wording.


I never used FA just because that is something anyone can add at anytime and for my own stuff that I develop just for the helluvit I tend to keep images at a minimal but a lot of people have asked me about it so when the BT thingy is available and I am not broke I may give it a whirl just to see whats under the hood.

Is the original author of FA the sole person in charge of this project or does he answer to someone else (just curious for my own reasons)?
 
Chris D said:
So the developer of Font Awesome, Dave Gandy, is developing a new project called Black Tie. It is essentially a re-write of Font Awesome:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/232193852/font-awesome-black-tie

I know a lot of people are using Font Awesome and I think most people who do will find this new project interesting.

There are various goals and rewards. If he gets funded $200,000 then he will build a custom icon subsetting tool which will allow you to only include the CSS and font icons that your site uses. I think that would be a fantastic feature.

I'm pledging a bit towards the project. If you use Font Awesome at the moment, support the guy who made it and support the next incarnation of the product.
Click to expand...
I backed it the first day, though I'm not really interested in the subsetting tool as I already use http://icomoon.io (and own the ultimate pack).
 
I was impressed with icomoon. Especially the fact it already integrates with Font Awesome.

And then I tried to do one of the fancy Font Awesome tricks of one icon overlaying another... doesn't work with icomoon :(

But, admittedly, I haven't explored the other packs available to it yet.
 
Chris D said:
I believe it is Dave Gandy only.
Click to expand...
That's good...I have found out way too many times already that involving money with things that involve more than one party for judgement calls can be a nightmare.

I may contribute at some point if it stays with him as the only one in charge of the project's future just for the whole 'too many knights at a round table calls for a square and changes the shape of things' aspect of development.
 
I've personally invested over $1K in various Kickstarters over the past couple of years and I will continue to do so.

What is Font Awesome?
 
Jaxel said:
I've personally invested over $1K in various Kickstarters over the past couple of years and I will continue to do so.

What is Font Awesome?
Click to expand...
Short answer: makes using svg icons easy as in using css class names, like class="fa .fa-microphone" gives you a microphone icon and also provides a quick way to add shadowing and such.
 
Wouldn't it be a good idea to invest (some time) in your own? Or provide an update to those who have invested in you?

Don't use the hostility in there as an excuse. That's of your own doing and can be repaired very easily if you want to.

Anyway. To answer your question, basically Font Awesome is a font face that consists of icons. Include their CSS from their CDN and add markup similar to:

Code: 
<i class="fa fa-trophy"></i>

Will produce a nice trophy icon.
 
Hey folks. I've been following this thread for a bit and thought I should respond to some concerns.
  • Font Awesome isn't going anywhere. I'm actually going full time on the icon thing. That means I'll actually have more time to work on the original Font Awesome than before.
  • I am indeed the person in charge of the entire direction of the project. I love this stuff. I'm really excited I can do it full time now.
  • Black Tie is funded, but there's still a ways to go with the stretch goals. Stay tuned for some updates to those very soon.
Are there additional things you all would like to see as group rewards / stretch goals? Maybe some things specific to Font Awesome? Any other questions or criticisms? I'm really happy to answer.
 

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