Wow, like asking a girl to pick her favourite pair of shoes. There's a time and place for every pair, (yes Yves, even comic sans) although Treefrog�

Well, I'm just starting to compile my font crushes and I intend to add on stuff like script fonts, handwriting etc. When I get round to it.

;)

Yeah, lets catagorize it a little then - put the favorites into catagories like: suitable for body text, display text - serifs, sans serifs, pixel fonts, monotype fonts and so on.

nobody wants to add their personal favorites?

Woah, Karen, those three "luxury" fonts are definitely NOT worth 1500 dollars. What a rip off. I wonder how many suckers have bought that collection so far.

LOL!!! Very funny stuff. One of my favourites is still FFDIN, can't beat that for a weird kinda strange german invisibility.

Meta Hair/Thin/Light made me remember why I fell in love with that typeface in the 80s.

Taz III is a beaut, but I still don't find the right kind of job for this typeface (just need a legit excuse to buy it :-))

Apropos Luc... his VolkswagenOSF is marvelous fun. Just not really something I'm allowed to use... but one of the cleanest Futura-remixes I know. His OSF are making this overused and exploited old face work for me again...

Other than that I'm back with very plain serif typefaces in the OTF pro version, like Caslon , Garamond, Warnock... almost an entirely new kind of ballgame with the Open Type features.

There's another way to see Luxury, and others who license
type regularly, might see it this way, too.

I view Luxury essentially as Custom Type.
There's the feeling that nobody else has it.

Is $1500 a ripoff for a logo? Why for three typefaces?

Chris, what do you think typographers charge
to create custom type?

More than $500 a typeface?

a little respect to the type designer will never
hurt here.

respectfully yours,

bj

edit: two favorites of mine that I'd like to get
are FF Danubia and Madisonian.

a recent favorite: Baroque Text

Chris, I think I read somewhere that no one has yet purchased Luxury, because everyone seems to think it's an elaborate joke (it's not). I agree with BJ, though: the high price alone gives it the exclusivity one would associate with "luxury" -- so it is kind of a postmodern joke after all, in addition to being (IMO) a valid price for some nice design.

My favourites right now are typefaces from Storm Type. I just bought the Czech Type Library, and getting a few weights of Sebastian. Don't really know why, but Tyfa is definitely my current favourite. <a href="http://www.stormtype.com/serap.html">Serapion Roman</a> is beautiful too... it's so original. But I must say it might be tough to find a use for it.

That's not a good thing that nobody has licensed Luxury, if accurate.

Type doesn't matter to enough people.

I guess it's the sign of more Times.

bj

I would love to have Trinit� from TEFF, and wanted to try it for my recent book,but it is way too expensive, as it would have had to come out of my own pocket.

I am understanding better now that some high prices may make economic sense for the producer, though I do wonder.

In the case of 'Luxury', I must admit it seems logical for what is essentially an advertising face. I see the logic less for Trinit�, a text face.

Incidentally, I think this logo for Aldo shoes: http://www.aldoshoes.com/aldosite/home.aspx
is in 'Luxury'. Compare:
http://www.orangeitalic.com/fonts/luxury.shtml

Of course it could be that Christian Schwartz designed the logo for them and they don't own the font. (I suspect the info at orangeitalic on luxury is outdated.)

I saw this in enormous size on a billboard at Houston & Lafayette in New York City. A girl in background holding in the foreground an enormous black ladies fashion boot with the logo in black next to it. Extremely cool - just what was intended by the face, I think.

Luxury is a funny concept, and it is aptly priced for what it stands for. But for me, generally speaking, I would be more inclined to pay more money for a well-made text typeface that I know I'm going to use a lot than an expensive display type. Text faces take more skill and time to make and refine.

Keith, maybe I am thinking the wrong way about this, but it seems to me only fashion advertisers will want to use 'Luxury', and they will have the money and want the exclusivity.

But with Trinite, an amazing text face, the whole world might want it, like Times New Roman. By the way, Lexicon, which TEFF compares to Times New Roman as far as versatility, and which Tiffany wants, is also priced similarly in the stratosphere.

If TEFF could sell thousands more of Lexicon or Trinite by lowering the price, it would make sense to do so. (Of course I don't actually know the 'price elasticity,' as the economists put it, for these typefaces.) For 'Luxury,' as a display face with a wonderful but very limited appeal, you're not going to sell thousands anyway.

The rational basis for pricing is not the work that goes into it, but what will gross the most for the product given the market. Of course that might influence your willingness to do the work in the first place...

William, I think in reality more people would be tempted to buy Luxury regardless of how expensive it is for its exclusivity as an advertising display face (which ironically would make it inexclusive in the long run!). More people are willing to pay for display faces but not 'invisible' text faces. Lexicon is a great typeface, but how many (graphic) designers know or even care about that? For them Lexicon or Trinit� are exactly the same as Times New Roman.

Sad, but true.

(I'm saying this with all the respect to Luxury, which imho is an interesting concept and seems very well made.)

>For them Lexicon or Trinit� are exactly the same as Times New Roman.

I can maybe reluctantly accept this for advertising, but for book design?

I am an amateur typophile. Am I just exercising wishful thinking that book designers care about text faces? And there are a lot of books published.

For them Lexicon or Trinit� are exactly the same as Times New Roman.

&

I can maybe reluctantly accept this for advertising, but for book design?

That's very generally speaking, of course. I was more thinking general graphic design who are more concerned with marketing. Definitely not for book design, one hopes!

Trinite is too mannered to be highly versatile. Lexicon however is worlds more versatile than Times, which is actually not a very capable text face.

hhp

>Trinite is too mannered to be highly versatile.

You may be right about that, but I never get to see it used here in the US that I know of. Do you know of any books set in it? How about Lexicon?

You may be right about that, but I never get to see it used here in the US that I know of. Do you know of any books set in it? How about Lexicon?

Send Ensched� an email to ask for printed specimens. In addition to laser-printed specimens, they send you actual printed copies of their typefaces in use, which I think are the best testimonies of their typefaces. Ensched� is one of my favourite foundries, though I don't have any of their typefaces (yet).

But BJ, the point is that Luxury is not a custom typeface and the price tag doesn't guarantee exclusivity.

I think the pricing puts Luxury in a kind of no man's land. You can't afford to buy it for a one-time use. But it's not the kind of face you'd use over and over again. You should'nt want to anyway.

And clients who can afford it will think twice about spending so much on a retail face. They might even be willing to pay slightly more to get a customised face.

Btw, does anyone have any idea how much a customised face would cost? The LTA one by Hubert Jocham for instance. Really curious.

Also, What are the factors that affect the pricing of a custom face?

Ooh, I like the ever-so-slightly-squarish form of Ruse.

> Do you know of any books set in it?

I can't think of any easily accessible ones. Like you say they're rare in the US.
Ironically, Trinite was commissioned by Autologic, an American CAD outfit!

hhp

>ask for printed specimens

I did, and they sent samples. And the note in PMN's elegant hand was great! The Lexicon example was a newspaper in Dutch, which makes it hard for me to judge. The Lexicon seemed to me too black, but I might have a different opinion if I could read it.

Trinite has so many versions (three different extender heights, two widths, et al.), that it would really take more settings of the different sizes to get a concept. The text setting I was sent - a setting in the tallest and widest version - was beautiful, but this is probably not the most practical size for book text. A lengthy PDF with different settings of the variations in a language I could read would be of great help in judging. But honestly, the price is prohibitive in any case.

Given what you and Hrant say about the scarcity of their stuff here, I wonder if they have they (and DTL) have priced themselves out of the US market. They may be geniuses in marketing as they are in type design, but it doesn't look that way from where I sit.

Oh, I read on Typographica that a book on Bram de Does has just come out, so maybe I can get that or access to it eventually.

It's not guranteed but implied, isn't it?, given normal
prices, market conditions, etc. Okay maybe not, but any
logical person about to fork over $1500 is going to ask the
typographer where the face has been distributed *before*
they buy...wouldn't they?

---

the cost of a custom face depends on lots of different factors,
most notably the time it takes to complete and
how much value that typographer places on time.
$2,000 to $10,000 might be a ballpark range.

There are a handful of typophiles here who could give you
more precise numbers.

--

i guess the words 'ripoff' and 'sucker' bothered me.
If someone or some company spends $1500 for a typeface
then:
1) type is important to them in the whole scheme of things.
2) they would have a pretty defined sense of how they were
going to use the typeface and how the typeface
was going to help them.
3) they would only feel ripped off, imo, if the type performed
like a loose bicycle or if it was being used *everywhere*.
4) Christian explained at typographi.ca the care
he takes with his retail releases and clearly the $1500
font market is tiny.

thus, I can't see any justification for 'sucker' and 'ripoff'...

bj

I agree with BJ. Aldo I think got a logo worth more than $1,500 to them with just this face.

By the way, if you click on my link to Aldo above, the flash animation sometimes ends with the girl holding the boot. Now imagine this (boot bigger, girl smaller) thirty feet tall with the logo 15 feet high, thirty feet wide, all against a bright white background. Wow. And a lot of the wow is the logo.

> i guess the words 'ripoff' and 'sucker' bothered me.

Agreed. I wouldn't want to be called a sucker just because I spent more than someone else would on a font.

Hey, if someone wants to pay for a custom typeface, let them...but to buy just 3 piddly little faces that will probably only be used a handful of times for 1500 bucks is ridiculous. Especially since they're just mimicing the look of other "high class" faces.

Search through the catalogue of any major foundery and you can probably find something similar, and better for a fraction of the price.

Christian, you are a greater genius than I previously thought.

Here I thought, there's some guy just trying to get under peoples' collars by picking on you. I was all about to post a long reply with a link to your website to show that anyone who actually bothered to read it would know that your typefaces aren't "piddly."

http://www.orangeitalic.com/fonts/luxury.shtml

But then I realized... that's probably just want you wanted. Stirring up people like this is a surefire way to get them to look at your site. You might's well have just pissed off Fox News - then everyone and their uncle would be buying your fonts. Even though they already are?

So, "Chris," a pretty thinly veiled cover-up, that's pretty darn smart. Color me impressed.

I suppose we will agree to disagree on this one, Chris.

but I would ask, is there any wiggle room...Do you think
that there is ANY scenario (we strum our imagination guitar)
in which purchasing Luxury would not be "ridiculous" decision
in your estimation?

Can you think of any such scenario?

(runs)

Hmmm.

if $1,500 is ridiculous for some piddly type crap, what about
$160,000?

http://idsnews.com/print.php?id=12849

Sheesh. The redesign at the University of Arizona in the
mid 90s was a steal at $29,000. It also gave the UA
Friz Quadrata as a "university typeface".

bj

> I wonder if they have they (and DTL) have
> priced themselves out of the US market.

From what I understand that might be intentional (they have
no sales channel in the US, for example), to reduce piracy.

BTW, the Lexicon specimen booklet is amazing itself.

--

I think pricing a given font very high can be a reasonable sales tactic.

hhp

>to reduce piracy

Sure, by selling nothing you eliminate piracy. The guillotine also cures the common cold.

It must be part of the same marketing genius that puts the DTL site in Dutch only, so nobody else can read it.

OK, count me annoyed. These two houses have some of the greatest contemporary work, but they make it inaccessible to the likes of me.

The site does need to be in English, yes.

But they're not selling "nothing", don't worry!
The low end of the font market is so crowded that simply raising prices for the same product puts you in a less competitive segment, with the perception of greater value/prestige. Plus when a customer pays a lot for something he guards it better. I think they're making more money this way, even though it's still not much. Same with Peter Bilak for example.

Just because you can't afford their products doesn't mean they're bad people. Just the fact that a good thing exists should make you happy, no matter that you will never possess it. When I look at a Bugatti EB110SS, I don't become envious, I become happy.

hhp

I assume that TEFF and DTL are wonderful people. I just think they don't have their act together on marketing. I claim zero expertise on this, but I just don't see the sense of pricing yourself out of one of the biggest markets on earth.

If I thought the pricing made sense, it wouldn't irritate me (a childish reaction on my part, I admit). If you price me, a hobbyist, out of the market, it is no problem. But if you have professional graphic designers like Keith Tam and Tiffany Wardle wanting your stuff and feeling they can't buy it, and you don't see it anywhere in print in spite of many admirerers, I say you are messing up.

I mean the fact that I see Christian Schwartz's 'Luxury' on a huge billboard in New York City seems to me to say he wasn't an idiot in the way he priced it. The fact that I don't see Trinite anywhere makes me think their pricing is a mistake.

Just, anyone, explain to me if you can how not selling in the largest market is good marketing.

***
Adobe and Linotype per weight: $21
DTL, per weight: $100
TEFF, per weight: $300

To get all of Trinite is about $3,000
To get all of Minion Pro (regular and condensed),
is $400.
***

> pricing yourself out of one of the biggest markets on earth.

I don't get it - are you saying Americans are poor? Or do you mean they're cheap?

> you don't see it anywhere in print

Question: the fonts that you see a lot in print, what are they really worth?

> I see Christian Schwartz's 'Luxury' on a huge billboard

I think you're jumping to conclusions.

> To get all of Trinite is about $3,000
> To get all of Minion Pro (regular and condensed),
> is $400.

What are you getting for what you pay for?
When you buy Minion, you're getting a font so widely used that it has virtually zero individuality.
It's like Trajan: you can't really use it anymore, because everything from trashy paperbacks to Isuzu uses it.

hhp

William, "Aldo" is definitively not Luxury Gold (see the bar on "A").

William, if you can sell one font family license for $3000 rather than seven font family licenses for $400 each, why would you consider this bad marketing, especially if the service overhead for each license is the same? Given the extent of font piracy in the larger market, there is something to be said for high prices and a limited market: among other things, you can be pretty certain that TEFF has a very different relationship with its customers than Adobe has. Likewise Gerard Unger, and also some American type designers such as Sumner Stone. Interesting to note that Sumner used to work for Adobe, so he knows both sides of the font pricing question. If you buy a font from the Stone Foundry, you not only pay a lot more than you would for an Adobe font, you also have to sign a license contract. Such things reinforce the value of what is being purchased.

I don't think either approach is bad marketing. They are different approaches to different markets. There are people who are willing to pay a premium for quality fonts and who understand that one of the things they are paying for is relative exclusivity: they want fonts that not every Tom, Dick and Harriet graphic designer has on his or her hard drive.

Are you saying that it is bad marketing for Emiglio Zegna to price their clothes so that the Walmart shoppers can't afford them?

And how do you measure the success of a small foundry like TEFF? Peter Matthias and his colleagues feed, clothe and house themselves and their families. Is it also necessary for a small foundry to become a big foundry? Or to enslave itself to shareholders and the constant drive for higher and higher profits?

Eduardo, I don't see the difference in the 'A's. What is the difference? (I am talking about the ALDO logo not the flash animation, which I guess has some light Helvetica.)

John, I agree that both approaches can make sense, or not. It just depends on the market - or, to use economists language, on the price elasticity for the good in question.

I also can easily believe an alternative theory: that the TEFF and DTL people make their livelihood mainly from teaching and commissioned work, and that the foundries are sidelines. And that they are too busy with other stuff to market properly.

(Evidence: DTL has been promising that van Krimpen's Romulus, which I adore, would be out in three months, for about three years. The current 'deadline' is August 2003; it has been changed four times, I think. They are also selling FontMaster, which seems to be a higher priority.)

Being an abominable marketer myself, I would be the last to say this weakness puts the good folks at these places in a bad light.

You may be right that they are following an optimal path for marketing. But I tend to believe my eyes. I don't see their faces here, and the work is great stuff, according to many on these boards, as well as amateur me. To me that raises a real question mark.

As to Hrant's reasonable question why they should succeed there and not here: it is different selling to their countrymen, who will buy out of friendship and national loyalty in a small country.

I'm definitely not saying I know better. And I learned from a similar discussion on Typographica that eg. different car models price for different niches. But I am saying that the evidence makes me question whether charging ten times more really is an economic benefit to them.

In this thread people are questioning Christian Schwartz's decision on 'Luxury', and defending DTL and TEFF. My intuition is that it is the other way around. I've been wrong before, lots, but I notice that sometimes when that little bell goes off sometimes I'm right too.

> TEFF and DTL people make their livelihood mainly from teaching
> and commissioned work, and that the foundries are sidelines.

And of course Adobe makes all its money from fonts...

> their countrymen, who will buy out of friendship and national loyalty in a small country.

I don't think you know the Dutch very well. :-)

BTW, I think the pricing of Luxury makes even more sense than TEFF/DTL's!
On the other hand, I could swear it is (or at least started out as) a joke.

hhp

http://www.orangeitalic.com/fonts/luxury.shtml

hhp

Do you know of any books set in it?

Jost Hochuli�s Gutenberg-Galaxie 1, published by the Institut
für Buchkunst Leipzig, is set in Trinit� 2 condensed. Very nice
design, BTW, with Neue Syntax Bold and Black as secondary
faces. Nijhof Lee sells it, but it's German only.

I personally don�t think Lexicon works well as a newspaper face.

> I personally don�t think Lexicon works well as a newspaper face.

Me neither - it's too full of life, too "opinionated". Just like you don't want a luscious vixen reading you the TV news, you want a balding middle-aged man.

What do you think of the new El Universal font - AKA Zocalo?

hhp

What do you think of the new El Universal font - AKA Zocalo?

I�m not sure I have paid attention to it. Where can one see it?

this is Christian Schwartz, posting an explanation of Luxury.

from the blogspot days of Typographi.ca

---

quote:

er... that's the joke. The Luxury Collection is our attempt to comment on the fact that the multitude of high-fashion logos can be boiled down into three fonts. "fashionable" things look a very specific way, and consumers allow them to be priced accordingly. we were hoping the ridiculous price would clue people in on the fact that the set is a joke. (the thought of someone paying $1500 for these three fonts, now that's funny!)

is there a place for social commentary and satire in type design? is the idea of a type family as conceptual art too much of a stretch? or is the problem that we were too straight-faced with our execution? because in this case, i think the attitude IS the function.

in any case, we were planning for this set to be more of a publicity stunt than a product that sold a whole lot of copies. and it looks like that part, at least, is working out pretty well.

---

Rodolfo, here's a title I once scanned up from the paper:
http://www.themicrofoundry.com/other/universal.gif

You can see it in full action (for both text and display) in Men's Fitness magazine, which was recently redesigned. I think it's more suited to a magazine than a newspaper in character, but the other way around in terms of proportions. For one thing, it seems really way too destive for bad news.

You can also see Zocalo in that FB "Newspaper Type" specimen:
(7.5Mb) http://www.fontbureau.com/newspapers/readability.tar.gz
Page 8

hhp

> way too destive for bad news.

I meant "festive".

hhp

So, may i slightly hijack this thread and add another question.?

What are / would be your personal 'All Time Favourite Serif Typefaces'.?

Some of mine, would be.:
Quirinus ( The original nondigitalnonbold Nebiolo one.. )..
Mrs. Eaves ( Slightly overused, but lovely nonetheless.. )..
Desmond Text..
Melior, maybe..
..

( I am, of course, very thankful for any Quirinuslookalikeornearlysimilarstyle
Typeface and related Type Foundry suggestions and / or hints.. : )

FB "Newspaper Type" specimen

Oh yes, I even downloaded those 7.5Mb once... ;)
I�ll look at it again, thanks. In any case, the best
way to judge it is printed on newspaper stock, in
typical newspaper setting (narrow columns, etc.).

I meant "festive"

I was wondering here what that meant! ;)

What are / would be your personal 'All Time Favourite Serif Typefaces'?

David, I must say I don't share the same taste as you when it comes to seriffed typefaces... Oh well. My all time favourites are:

Charter by Matthew Carter
Coranto by Gerard Unger

Well made, tried and true, traditional serifs:

Berthold Baskerville
Adobe Caslon
Adobe Garamond
Minion

Others that I don't have but would like to have:

Swift by Gerard Unger
PMN Caecilia by Peter Matthias Noordzij
Miller by Matthew Carter
Hoefler Text by Johnathan Hoefler
Mercury by Johnathan Hoefler and Tobia-Ferere Jones
Sabon Next by Jean-Fran�ois Porchez
Proformer by Petr van Blokland
Lexicon by Bram de Does

Hrant, thanks for the link to the PDFs. Great stuff. I think Zocalo is a really handsome typeface. It might work quite well for newspapers, no? And why?

Regarding use of Trinit�: it is used a lot in The Netherlands, both in books and, particularly, on their covers. When I was there in 1996, Trinit� seemed to be the national standard for book covers; this trend might have changed by now, but I believe it is still highly favoured by Dutch publishers. This year, a television documentary and a new book have been issued about Bram de Does's life and work, which attest to the high esteem in which his types are held in The Netherlands.

By the way, I have a copy of the television documentary on VHS if anyone in Vancouver wants to see it. It is in Dutch with no subtitles. We were hoping that a subtitled version would be available in time for the Vancouver ATypI conference, but it didn't work out. Maybe Prague.

John:

Ooh, "enslaved to our shareholders." That's a great phrase.

T