Remembering Vernon Adams

Open-source font developer Vernon Adams has passed away inCalifornia at the age of 49.In 2014, Adams was injured in an automobile collision, sustaining serious trauma from which he never fully recovered.Perhaps best known within the Linux community as the creator of KDE'suser-interface font Oxygen, Adams created a total of 51 font families publishedthrough Google Fonts, all under open licenses. He was also active in a number of related free-software projects, including FontForge,Metapolator, and the Open Font Library. In 2012, he co-authored theuser's guide for FontForge as part of Google's Summer of Code Documentation Camp, which we reported on at that time.

Speaking personally, Vernon was always quick to offerencouragement and assistance to newcomers-regardless of their experience with typedesign, FontForge, or free software in general. There were also few people who put asmuch energy into improving the usability of free-software design toolsas he did. In addition, he was a constant advocate forfree-software principles in the world of fonts-not just ondevelopment lists and at libre graphics conferences, but on type forums aswell, where "open source" did not automatically garner a warmreception. The tagline on his website was "fonts for everyone," and he meant it. He'llbe missed.