from Hacker News

The Tragic Story of Vernon and Oswald (2016)

by akamaozu on 5/1/21, 9:33 PM with 17 comments

  • by Arathorn on 5/1/21, 11:35 PM

    We used Nunito Sans on Riot.im for many years, and had the same experience of tracking down the author only to discover Vernon's tragedy. The font lives on, though - https://github.com/googlefonts/nunito for instance has sprouted a full Cyrillic version since.

    http://sansoxygen.com/ is the way to donate to support Vernon's family now (the youcaring.com link seems to be dead).

  • by ternaryoperator on 5/2/21, 12:07 AM

    >It seems he didn’t have life insurance, either.

    Peeps, if you have children, get some damn life insurance! Not doing so can turn out to be the single worst parenting decision of your life.

  • by sinuhe69 on 5/2/21, 4:26 AM

    Can they not ask Google to put a short note and the funding link on his fonts so people who is looking for fonts can know about and support his family? I think a lot more people should know about this tragic story.

  • by frutiger on 5/1/21, 11:43 PM

    Mods, can you please spend (2016) to the title?

  • by drewlesueur on 5/2/21, 1:55 AM

    Ironically, when I tried to revisit this post I accidentally clicked a different Hacker News link, ending up on https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/story-one-whal... I noticed they use the Oswald font on that site.

  • by isomorph on 5/2/21, 2:28 AM

    I clicked on the YouCaring link but it took me to a 404 page that said it had been absorbed by GoFundMe. When I searched for “Vernon Adams” on GoFundMe I couldn’t find anything. Does anyone have the link? Has anyone successfully donated?

    EDIT: I see the link is http://sansoxygen.com/

  • by CryptoPunk on 5/2/21, 8:55 AM

    Maybe Vernon Adams' family could sell a commemorative (i.e. not endowing any copyright) NFT of the Oswald font and auction it on Ethereum.

    The woman who featured in the disaster girl meme recently sold an NFT of the meme for 180 ETH, which is worth around $473,000 at current market prices:

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/disaster-girl-makes-over-4...

  • by Igelau on 5/2/21, 12:37 AM

    He also designed Amatic SC, which is practically everywhere.

  • by aphroz on 5/2/21, 7:27 AM

    Medium is blocked in my country, is there any mirror available to read this somewhere else without using a VPN?

  • by livinginfear on 5/2/21, 8:15 AM

    I've donated to this cause before. His family deserves as much, given the large impact of his contributions. Rest in peace.