I agree with freedom......
It's not how many fonts that you have, it's what you do with them that counts!!!
I have around 3000 fonts and that's probably a conservative estimate! out of which my favourites are Univers (all weights) Helvetica (all weights and it distorts so well)), Geneva, bureau grotesque, FF collection and occasionally for a specialised look Emigre fonts.......
Thats right out of thousands of fonts I maybe use 10 to 20 of them regularly.... The others are there if I ever need to get either a specialsed look to a piece of work, or if I'm freelancing at a company and doing print work, the chances are I'll have the companies fonts, so i don't have to arse about buying them again, or locating them off peoples servers!!! Its a time saving issue!!
I paid for alot of my fonts, some are under liscense from companies, i.e. I can use the font for any company that holds a license for that font..... others freeware, others are free and downloaded off Fontshop and Fontworks over a period of 6 years, they soon all mount up!!!
I thought software companies did do specials for students?? although you can get 3 months full useable demos, I picked up Indesign 1.5.2 last year at Mac Expo London, it was a life saver, I couldn't locate my own copy of Indesign intime, so the demo came in perfect for getting that work out before the deadline!!!
I like the idea of free software to students, I'm sure Macromedia did something similar with Flash in the UK a while ago...
Personally I think that creatives are becoming too obsessed with knowing every piece of software available... and worry less about the actual ideas for the work...... It's almost if the software is governing the design now, which is very bad, and I think Flash is a prime example of this...... Flash sites are pretty generic stuff, vector based outline shapes, with cheeseball sound effects, stuff flying in from the sides...... and f**king horrible Intro animations...... Flash sites seem to suffer from the same generic look, and there are very few that really stand out from the Flash norm.....
http://www.mtv2.co.uk/ is probably a good demonstration of flash's capabilities..... but very few people are exploring its true possibilities... by coming up with solid ideas.... as opposed to only creating the Flash stuff we have seen before because its the 'IN' look!!!!
I step off my soapbox now!!!!
