I bought a new font this weekend. I bought Tungsten from the Hoefler & Frere-Jones foundry. It cost me USD $99 – a sum of cash that isn’t going to break the bank, but considering there is a very real chance that I may end up never using the typeface in a commercial, money-making project, it’s not an amount to be sniffed at either.
Tungsten is the latest in only a very small handful of commercial fonts that I have ever bought. Considering I work in the creative industry, I don’t think I’ve bought many fonts at all. But I expect I’ve bought more than many others – especially other web designers.
As web designers, typography is a very important part of what we do. But choice of typeface has, at least historically, been very limited. So unlike our traditional graphic design cousins, the opportunity to justify the cost of a commercial font is few and far between.
All the fonts I have bought have all been very similarly priced to my Tungsten purchase. But if you wanted to buy, lets say the Gotham typeface – also from Hoefler & Frere-Jones, the entire font family would set you back some USD $1,200.
That. Is. A. Lot. Of. Money!
Is it worth it? If you are a traditional graphic designer and you know that owning that typeface will allow you to produce material for your clients for many, many years, then I dare say it is worth it. But for me? Not at all!
For me, the price of most professional fonts is simply prohibitive. And as I said earlier, I work in the creative industry, typography is an important part of what I do. I’m interested in this stuff. I want to buy fonts. Do you hear that? I want to consume fonts, but I can’t.
I’m about to cast aspersions on an entire industry by making a huge sweeping generalisation. I apologise if this statement doesn’t apply to you. But I suspect many professional designers possess at least some typefaces acquired through, shall we say, illegitimate means.
As someone who works in a creative industry, of course I believe that the people who put the hours and weeks and months into crafting something as delicate and intricate as a typeface should be paid for it. Damn right!
But I also believe that there are vast numbers of people like myself who would be interested in buying typefaces, but can’t justify the costs.
From my perspective there are two things that prevent me buying more typefaces:
1. The cost
First and foremost, fonts are too expensive. At the moment they are well and truly aimed at the elite. Typefaces are only for professional traditional graphic designers. Not for web designers like myself, not for design hobbyists and certainly not for the general public.
There is always a case for lowering the price of your product to open up to a far broader market. At the moment the most compelling option for design hobbyists and the general public is BitTorrent. That doesn’t earn the font foundries anything!
2. Try before you buy
From a personal perspective the main thing that puts me off buying more fonts is the uncertainty of whether I’ll actually end up using it.
Most foundries offer some sort of rudimentary character testing tool where you can input a short string of text and see what it looks like in a particular typeface. However, let’s face it, they’re rubbish!
I want to see typefaces in situ – on the designs I’m working on. I want to see them in high resolution and I want to experiment with kerning and line heights. This can’t be hard.
With tools like Picnik and Aviary offering online image editing and illustration tools, wouldn’t you absolutely love it if the font foundries offered a basic tool where you could import your artwork and test out various typefaces on your actual artwork?
Are professional fonts worth it?
I’m sure many will disagree with my thoughts on the cost of professional fonts. In fact, I’m sure many experienced graphic designers will tell you of a time when professional fonts cost a lot, lot more and that fonts today are cheap.
But I know I’m not alone, am I? Do you think professional fonts are worth it?
I know I would love to buy more fonts if only I could justify the cost and had better tools for trying before I buy? Wouldn’t you?
4 fantastic comments
Fine article. I agree with you entirely.
It baffles me why the industry clings to such an outdated model. Perhaps because their mainstays – the traditional print industry – remain a lucrative market and fear slashing prices to open up the market would lose them these occasional windfall purchases. If that’s the case, I think it’s a mistake. There are tens of thousands of designers and small agencies who would be delighted to buy typefaces on a regular basis – if realistically priced.
Excellent article sir, I totally agree with you and Nigel.
Are fonts worth the big chunks of change? Yes, as most things that are creatively and lovingly slaved over are. Is it realistic or encouraging to the designers who want to use them? I don’t think so.
With so many new designers (who hopefully want to be law abiding and fair) springing up around the world and with graphic design being so sought after these days I think it would be pretty lucrative for foundries to lower their prices a bit, but what do I know.
On an unrelated note: I really dig the way your sentences flow in this bit of writing. Awesome.
This is a poignant subject for me at the moment, as last night I was up until 4am completing a set of 5 logo design concepts for a client.
I was willing to go out and buy 2 different weights of a Frutiger® font, but whilst researching for a better font, I found some great San Serif alternatives on FontSquirrel. Now, yes, these were Free…and free for commercial use.
After looking at them up close in IA, they were quality fonts, and it got me wondering why I would go out and spend up to £61 per weight on a new one. Yeah, it’ll have all the niftly sub’weights and ultra special characters, but for a lot of dough. Is it worth it?
Yes, we should be supportive of the creatives behind quality fonts, but I get the feeling their fonts are aimed at major design studios, as though they’re only priced high so the “real” designers can show their worth.
If fonts were £10 per weight, I’d have a new set each month.
The logos I designed looked great in the new font…which was free. The foundries need a good shake up…
Very good article…Are some fonts worth the price? Yes and no…
Yes because of the time it actually takes to research, draw(yes, I said draw), edit/audit, create and then market them…the Foundries would like some ROI as soon as possible on a product that may or may not be bought, sold, pirated or even in some cases duplicated or stolen…I know this because I am getting into the business of making typefaces and building a foundry catalog and I would be very upset if I spent 6 months of R&D on a typeface only for it to get swiped and sold on an Office Supply store font compilation CD for less than a cup of coffee…
But I would also say no because they are a bit pricey due to the price structure of the boutique foundries. Since they are not resellers (who if you are not aware will take a commission of 35% to 50% per font sold from the smaller foundries) they can call the price and charge huge amounts for a type family in addition to the money they make from very “deep pocketed” bread-and-butter clients. The unfortunate part that i find about purchasing fonts and also having the tools to make them is when I spend a ungodly amount on a font family and then open it up in a font editor only to find that they don’t have much to them except the standard English language glyphs…one would think they would take the time to do this in more than one language but if that was the case they would be so pricey no one would be able to afford them from certain boutique shops…
Our model here at AKOFAType is to make well formed, functional and diverse typeface families for hard working designers at reasonable prices…I don’t look to get rich from this…a livable wage for me and my family is enough…
On a final note…i don’t think you would get a test copy to try from any font foundry…it’s like going to the grocer and asking to cook and eat the sirloin steak before you pay for it…
What are your thoughts?
