> corporate work for 8-12 distinct brands

It's smart to have a good chunk of "classic" designs, but if you blow too much of your budget on something like Font Folio you'll cripple your ability to target... young people? :-) The fonts that tap into the current "zeitgeist" almost all come from smaller houses (like Storm and Process). Which means you need to look around a bit and see what's out there in the nooks and crannies, but that can be gobs of fun too. And we can certainly help! :-)

BTW, if you will be doing screen-based (and not just print-based) design, check out this:
http://www.ultrafonts.com
The entire library of high-quality and highly progressive designs would barely put a dent in your budget!

Happy shopping.

hhp

Just bought the Linotype Gold Library for my lab at a liberal arts college(about 8K US). It offers a good variety for "young people" but its true enough that ultrafonts and flash fonts will need to be added as we start to focus more on multi-media and less on print.

I appreciate the url on ultrafonts....

Good luck,

Dhall

5000 GBP is more like 9000 USD, not 5000 USD

So start with Adobe FontFolio 10 OpenType (2200 Adobe OpenType fonts, $5000)
http://www.adobe.com/store/products/master.jhtml?id=catFontFolio
You'll really have a full load of Linotype, ITC, Adobe and Monotype originals in the OpenType format.

Then, add the Storm Celebration Font Set to your cart (complete library: $1890, 527 fonts)
http://www.stormtype.com/cfs.html
You'll have a great library full of innovative designs, and will have some $7000 spent.

Finally, go through the websites of
http://houseind.com/house.php?page=fonts
http://www.typography.com/catalog/index.html
http://www.fontbureau.com/
http://www.p22.com/
and pick some families to your liking to spent the remaining $2000 or so

Best,
Adam

BTW, do you guys think it's funny that Linotype has a 4000Euro CD with ~1400 OpenType fonts on it called... FLIRT? If that's flirting, what the hell do they consider marriage?!

hhp

Nice problem to have!

Adobe has some great fonts. In a library that size, there's bound to be some... well, some lesser works, but there's tons of quality there, and lots of utility in their OpenType implementation.

The faces with optical variations are very useful. They give those of us mourning the decline of Multiple Masters some comfort.

Whether you get the Folio or individual sets is a matter for you, your taste, and your calculator.

I agree that you should look at the Storm fonts. Great value for unusual faces.

Linotype's Optima Nova is well worth a look, and you should look for some of Matthew Carter's faces.

Another thing to consider when looking at different foundries is their licensing conditions: some allow embedding in PDFs, some don't, some allow modifications of the fonts for in-house use, some don't, that sort of thing.

Most foundries that don't include embedding in their standard EULA will allow it under separate licensing, but you should check all that up front. You don't want to prepare documentation in a PDF only to discover that you can't use your chosen font.

I would also consider Bitstream Type Odyssey 2: http://www.myfonts.com/info/bitstream-type-odyssey-2/

It's just $1500 for 1450 fonts. There are no OpenType fonts there, but many quality digitizations of classic faces. The typefaces are renamed but e.g. for Linotype faces, the designes are licensed.

The digital versions of Bitstream fonts are really superb. For example, I think their Futura is better than Adobe's or URW's. In many cases, I consider the Bitstream digital versions better than the ones with the original names. After all, the initial digitization of the Bitstream type library was supervised by Matthew Carter.

You don't like ITC faces so you'll live with the fact that Bitstream no longer has the license to distribute their digitizations of ITC fonts, and they are not included on Type Odyssey.

On the other hand: probably the best way to get a huge load of Bitstream and ITC fonts probably is to buy Corel DRAW 9 on eBay. :D
You can get a copy for $20 and it includes an incredible collection of fonts: over 1000 Western fonts from Bitstream and URW, plus a set of international fonts (Cyrillic, CE, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic).

Of course, Type Odyssey 2 contains quite a few new faces from other foundries, and it may be the reason the get the library.

I'd also pay attention to the ParaType library:
http://www.myfonts.com/url?3967302fb3976b83a34d82d8464b7a79
Some of their fonts are Unicode with great hand hinting, and all of them are available in Western, CE and Cyrillic encodings. They have very fine licensed versions of Bitstream fonts, and quite a few original designs.

Adam

m, make sure to look at the Indie Font books too. Some of those Terminal Design fonts are beautiful with amazing range of weights.

m gattie

Since you are in Manchester what may be unique would be a traditional US of A type library. I have influence over the pricing so you may find me easy to get along with if you take the entire library.

http://www.lanstontype.com/LanstonPriceList.html

Lanston is the American Monotype Library, not to be confused with Monotype, or Agfa Monotype. The library was 'art directed' by http://www.lanstontype.com/GoudyWoodcut.html

And believe me, we would not put a dent in your wallet.

sales@lanstontype.com

Roll your own.
"Campaign for Real Typefaces".
The public sector should support today's individual content creator, not big corporate blandness and "foundries" rehashing stuff designed aeons ago.

Hrant,
the Linotype Flirt OpenType collection is a combination of the regular OT fonts and a fair number of "traditional" PostScript versions of the Linotype faces.
Useless for an InDesign user but handy for a Quark user without the goodies of the larger charactersets of OT. This means you get a load of SmallCaps fonts, Oldstyle Figure fonts and even Alternate and Expert sets.
A clever marketing solution for the ones to learn what OpenType could offer.
A single user or small studio could, most probably, better invest in an application upgrade and an OT collection such as Adobe and Linotype offer nowadays.
my 2 euro cents,
henk

Thanks for all the great posts!

In answer to a few questions:

>>>if you will be doing screen-based (and not just print-based) design

It's all print, there's a separate department for screen design

>>>5000 GBP is more like 9000 USD, not 5000 USD

Sadly not; I see you're unfamiliar with the crazy UK/US pricing disparities.

If you check out Adobe's US site, you'll see font folio at $4,999 (I presume ex tax). Adobe's UK site gives it as

By the way, does anyone have experience with www.type.co.uk?

I need to buy from a single vendor, in the UK, and it has to be a proforma type deal (ie. no credit cards online). Any recommendations?

Well, that's just how my organisation works.

There aren't credit cards; I'm sure some middleman will assist the deal. It needn't be proforma, just some sort of invoice/reembursement setup.

Okay, I've just been having a look through that Type Odyessy CD and it's totally weird. There are loads of fonts which look nicely drawn, and really familiar, but they've all got weird names. Then suddenly Caslon or Franklin Gothic will appear, just as you'd expect! I was totally confused after five minutes.

Anyway, can anybody tell me what the deal is, and how the bitstream naming/ownership situation arose? Is there a site you can point me to which tells me which bitstream name equates to which name I've heard of?

By the way, are these the same bitstream fonts which ship with the Corel products?

Some of this bitstream library is familiar. For example, Swiss

Yes, the Helvetica you mention in the Essentials is the Neue Helvetica. Not an inferior cut.
The Linotype (your quirky sans!) is most probably the Linotype Ergo, designed by Gary Munch. He was awarded the International Type Contest Price, in Mainz 2000, I think.
Great face and even in long "reading text".
For his Ergo Sketch he got the Bukvaraz price last year.
I think the Essentials 1 + 2 is a good deal.

A visit to Berthold's site shows they want $549 for Akzidenz Grotesk! And all their other faces (formato, imago, delta) are really expensive, with no bundles. Bah!

From following links in this thread, I've found the following faces I really like the look of:

Hoefler:
Gotham ($476, plus whatever fee to embed in PDF)

Mark Simonson:
Proxima Sans ($30)
Felt Tip Roman ($60)
Metallophile ($60)

>>>The Linotype (your quirky sans!) is most probably the Linotype Ergo

Yes, it's Ergo, I just checked.

I'll be interested to see what it's like for body copy!

m-ga,

the Bitstream situation goes roughly as follows: in the 1980s, Linotype was still a large print machines manufacturer who was not interested in making digital fonts for the slowly emerging DTP market. A group of type designers including Matthew Carter left Linotype and started Bitstream, which was to become the first digital type foundry in the world. They digitized original Linotype typefaces, but Linotype refused to license the original trademarks to them. So they used names derived from their own classification (Humanist 777 being Frutiger, Swiss 721 being Helvetica, etc.). Bitstream licensed the names from some other foundries, so some of the fonts used original names (e.g. Futura), but those copied from Linotype, Monotype and Berthold designs usually did not. However, these still were very faithful and high-quality digitizations, not cheap knock-offs like many many other companies offered them.

Some time later, the original team left Bitstream. At this time, the company signed the unfortunate deal with Corel so that nearly the entire Bitstream type library (850 fonts or so) shipped with Corel DRAW starting from version 4.0.

Over the time, Bitstream's policy towards other vendors and designers matured, and when Jim Lyles took over the maintainence of the Bitstream type library, they started releasing new designs as Bitstream New Font Collection. They also added the euro character to their old fonts, of course.

So the Bitstream Type Odyssey includes a large portion (~850 fonts I think) of the original library and some 600 fonts that are new designs, released by Bitstream or licensed from other foundries.

You can browse the contnets of Type Odyssey 2 here: http://www.myfonts.com/browse/product/type-odyssey-2-mac/?mode=alpha

Last year, Linotype and Bitstream signed an agreement which finally ended their dispute over the designs. Linotype officially "licensed" the designs to Bitstream (but not the trademarks). This means, that prior to that, Swiss 721 was an unlicensed clone of Helvetica, and now it's a licensed version of Helvetica, but sold under a different name. The press release is here: http://www.bitstream.com/categories/news/press/2003_bitstream/071803_linotype.html

This is handy to know as this sort of confirms that the Bitstream versions really are derived from the same original sources.

Best,
Adam

the Bitstream situation goes roughly as follows: in the 1980s, Linotype was still a large print machines manufacturer who was not interested in making digital fonts for the slowly emerging DTP market.

Actually, in the 1980s, Linotype was already collaborating with Adobe of the development of digital versions of the Linotype Library. Bitstream came about because Mike Parker struck a deal to provide copies of Linotype fonts to a client who couldn't license from Linotype. This client provided the startup investment for Bitstream, and Mike jumped ship from Linotype, taking Matthew Carter and David Berlow with him. That, at least, is Mike's account.

Hi m-ga,

Oh, to have your problem!!! I thought I'd mention PMN Caecilia is a sweet humanist slab of butter. Very nice to work with. Only wish there was a weight above the heavy.

I've recently gone very keen on Tankard's Shire types (www.typography.net). It's on my wish list along with several of the Storm fonts (what a bargain

>>>So they used names derived from their own classification (Humanist 777 being Frutiger, Swiss 721 being Helvetica, etc.)

Hmm.

That's interesting. I've got the versions of the Humanist and Frutiger that Adobe ship, and the letterforms are quite different up close.

However, I prefer Humanist close-up; is this how Frutiger should really look? I've never seen the original.

Ditto with Swiss. In my opinion, much nicer than the vanilla Helvetica you see around (eg. the default on older Macs).

Can I expect these kind of results from the entire Bitstream library?

As an aside, I see the CD is shipped as "unlocked". What would be the legality of me opening the contents with, say, FontLab, and changing the titles to what I think they should be, granted that I'll never sell them on? (and remember, I'm submitting externally with subset fonts in PDF/X-1a).

In other words, does the EULA allow me to do anything I like short of modifying *and* resale

To paraphrase Randy:

You seems living in England: Buy English Type!!!!

Jeremy Tankard faces are wonderful! www.typography.net

The Foundry faces are not bad too. can't recall the url. There is couple of others very good foundries in UK, do a search at www.myfonts.com


And don't check my own fonts they came from the other side of the channel.

The Bitstream license can be viewed at:
http://www.myfonts.com/viewlicense?id=315

Unfortunately, it states "No Modifications. You may not modify, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or create derivative works based on the Bitstream Product without Bitstream's prior written consent. "

If the license did not prohibit this, you would normally be allowed to put any trademarked name into the font provided they are for your use only. However, IMO this is impractical and may cause confusion. Note that the original fonts are QA'ed until get-no so I wouldn't want to modify them unless I really need to.

On a related matter, the Linotype EULA is more liberal with regard to modification: "You may modify the Font-Software to satisfy your design requirements. Such modifications are in every respect subject to this Font-Software License Agreement. "
http://www.myfonts.com/viewlicense?id=8

As for the digitizations: for many of the older designs, there is no "one master design". These often were work in progress, evolving in the designer's mind and constantly adapted to match various technological requirements. Some typefaces have undergone such major revisions that the current versions barely look similar to the initial ones. Best example: Palatino. Current Palatino Linotype is a heavily simiplified text version, Berthold's version captures the display style of the initial drawings. Bitstream's Zapf Humanist 801 is somewhere in-between I think.

So in some cases, different artwork from different periods was used by different companies to prepare the digitizations. Also, most digitizations involve adaptation, so the person who art-directed the digital version also has an influence on the final look.

Regards,
Adam

Nick

"Campaign for Real Typefaces".
The public sector should support today's individual content creator, not big corporate blandness and "foundries" rehashing stuff designed aeons ago.

Adam.

A group of type designers including Matthew Carter left Linotype and started Bitstream, which was to become the first digital type foundry in the world.

Adam Twardoch wrote:
On a related matter, the Linotype EULA is more liberal with regard to
modification: "You may modify the Font-Software to satisfy your design
requirements. Such modifications are in every respect subject to this
Font-Software License Agreement. "
http://www.myfonts.com/viewlicense?id=8

However, I took the EULA from Linotype

I wrote: "A group of type designers including Matthew Carter left Linotype and started Bitstream, which was to become the first digital type foundry in the world."

Gerald Giampa wrote: "What is your basis for that conclusion?"

Which conclusion? Where I learned English, a conclusion used to be a necessary consequence of propositions, usually joined by a marking word such as "so", "therefore", "then", "because", "hence" etc. In a sentence built like "I bought a hat which is black", I cannot detect a conclusion despite my best efforts. But I learned English in the communist Poland, so I guess it's all wrong.

Adam

Adam

John,

yours indeed is a very interesting explanation, pretty far away from the official word of mouth

A.

Adam,

Stating something as "fact" certainly is drawn by making a conclusion. Erroneous or not.

I am not into either giving or getting English lessons. I am busy enough with Swedish. I was asking a simple question.

> contemporary UK designers

Besides the two great recommendations of Tankard and The Foundry, I'd add Fontsmith: they have some truly charming designs.
http://www.fontsmith.com

BTW, Porchez teaches at a British university sometimes - does that count? ;-)

Oh, and about the modification bit: I for one would heartily encourage you to violate any clause in any EULA that forbids "internal modification" of fonts. It is nothing but an indecent scare tactic to subvert the user. But do mind the rest! And certainly don't distribute any modified (or I guess also non-midified :-) copies of the fonts - not to say I think you would, just trying to point out that I'm not advocating wanton disregard for the law... just carefully calculated disregard. :-)

hhp

Gerald: But John Hudson is not dead and at least one of his fine designs are available at one of those demons of "corporate blandness" you speak of.

'Tis not. We cancelled our contract with Agfa Monotype as soon as we were able, and currently no one has permission to sell any Tiro typefaces. They still show up on a couple of AM reseller sites, but you can't order them. If you do find anyone selling our fonts, let us know!

Currently, none of the old Tiro retail faces are available. We pulled them all, even from our own site. Ross has completely redesigned Plantagenet, and the OT version of this is available on a limited basis now and will, when the new website goes live, be available for download and licensing. There are tentative plans to redesign some of the others, but this is a low priority.

John,

Actually, I was meaning to ask about that. I visited your site, seems you are in the middle of a major revamp.

Some link, from the forum I think, took me to the redesigned Plantagenet, looked very good.

m -- you should definitely talk to the people at Fontworks (type.co.uk.) first.

They are (as far as I know) the longest -standing digital type distributor in the UK (they used to be the FontFont franchise), with distribution of a number of top UK type foundries, several exclusive. Not to mention ShinnType.

And they will give you excellent info on multi-user licensing.

Gerald,

you'd certainly agree that a group of type designers including Matthew Carter left Linotype and started Bitstream? (It was Mike Parker's initiative).

You'd possibly agree that Bitstream was the first digital type foundry in the world -- at least it's how I see it. A company that devotes their primary resources to developing digital fonts and releasing them -- this is my definition.

My understanding is that other companies either concentrated only on technology and services (e.g. URW) or the development of digital fonts was late or low among their priorities. But I may be mistaken.

A.

>What I am getting at is this, does type stink when it gets old?

So I guess we don't need new songs, books, movies, and architecture either?

Gerald, it's terrible what has happened to typographic culture in the last few years, particularly in North America. In effect there is a moratorium on typographers using new typefaces. The general preference is for retro scripts and mid 20th century faces (mainly sans). The other stultifying factor is the preponderance of bland, utilitarian fonts given away by Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe with their software apps.

So yes, I would say that public sector organizations owe no fealty to mainstream corporate culture, and the affinity of bureaucracies is a powerful attraction between the two, but it should be resisted by free-thinking individuals.

Why is a public sector organisation prefering to buy from a small, independent foundry considered to be a "charitable donation"? Why is it business as usual to shop Adobe, but largesse to patronize Storm?

Death to Helvetica!

Adam,

you'd certainly agree that a group of type designers including Matthew Carter left Linotype and started Bitstream? (It was Mike Parker's initiative).

Yes, I know both Matthew and Mike. Mike Parker I know very well. It would surprise me very much to hear anything different. Especially since I have other knowledge that substantiates this.

When I was at URW they were certainly service oriented, especially servicing ITC which in turn licensed fonts for many systems. Many areas get grey. I believe Autologic, Bertold and Letraset produced digital IK data internally previous to the "Desktop Fad". In fact Sumner Stone worked at Autologic as did Bob Graves before Sumner worked at Adobe. Also Letraset produced digital fonts but sold transfer sheets. Also I know that Bitstream and Adobe had Ikarus systems running.

The most substantial difference is the licensing and output format. Not to mention there is

>So I guess we don't need new songs, books, movies, and architecture either?

This shouldn't be an 'either/or' but rather 'both/and' matter. We can use both old and new, and should.


>a conclusion used to be a necessary consequence of propositions

This meaning only aplies to formal logic. You can speak in English of a 'conclusion' drawn from facts and reasoning without any formal deduction involved. This is by far the most common usage.

Thanks for the links.

Bliss, by Jeremy Tankard, is exactly the type of thing I'm looking for. The appearance and heritage are perfect for us, I can definitely see it in our corporate setting.

Fontsmith is another great link. Albert is lovely, and might even be better for us than Bliss

William,

Thank you.

> It's very confusing.

It is, isn't it...
But I think you're doing really well so far!

hhp

Adam, I think the key to understanding Bitstream's role is that they were the first device independent digital type company. Other companies, including Linotype, had been involved in making digital type for several years before the formation of Bitstream, but for use on their own propriatary machines. Bitstream was, apparently, the first company to make and license digital fonts without also selling you the machine.

So Bitstream was instrumental in both the largest single act of font piracy in history, and the collapse of an industry that stopped making the one thing that made it a lot of money.

But Nick,

. . . not big corporate blandness and "foundries" rehashing stuff designed aeons ago.

>>>Why is a public sector organisation prefering to buy from a small, independent foundry considered to be a "charitable donation"? Why is it business as usual to shop Adobe, but largesse to patronize Storm?

I don't know if this is a general trend or feeling.

Part of the problem is lack of publicity: for example, I'm only able to make my

William,

>a conclusion used to be a necessary consequence of propositions

This meaning only aplies to formal logic. You can speak in English of a 'conclusion' drawn from facts and reasoning without any formal deduction involved. This is by far the most common usage.

Oh, and to really make you guys weep

I would also take a look again at Fontbureau's stuff, like the new Benton Sans and Whitman, and the more adventurous Amplitude. They cater to the magazine and newspaper market, and my impression is that their stuff is very solid and usable. In other words you won't get "just a pretty face" for display, but will be able to use it in a variety of situations.

> too tricky for Joe User.

Maybe part of the your budget should go towards training... :->

hhp

Arial? This is a crime, not a decision. As printed text face this is the biggest plague of typography. Just show your bosses Meta or Myriad, both of which come in huge families, and a text setting of either vs Arial. Unless they are blind they will see how unreadable Arial is by comparison.

In my opinion, Bliss will be still better.

It seems to me you are in a position to bargain with founderies, so if I were you I would talk to Adobe, Tankard, Montalbano, Fontbureau, and whomever else you fancy. Explain your needs and get them to propose a deal that will help you most. Make them work for your business, and you will probably get some great advice and a result you are confident about and happy with.

>we may still find insult

Sorry, the barb was not aimed at an independent doing work of character, but at those corporations who have produced plain digital transcriptions of older types, and the hold these now have on the marketplace.

This is the "representative range of classic faces (bodoni, helvetica/univers/akzidenz grotesk, frutiger, futura, gill sans, franklin gothic etc); " that m-ga, with conventional wisdom, makes his/her first priority.

Lanston is obviously a foundry, and not a "foundry" (by which I mean publishers who neither originate the concept for the types they market, not produce the fonts).

And I'm tarred with my own brush, as I've been responsible for a few non-original typefaces myself.

Nonetheless, the best antidote to the blight of mega-corp culture, and the most valid form of cultural expression, is original, local work. Sure, there is a role for conserving type designs, but that is presently the norm in typography, to the detriment of adequately using a variety of contemporary designs.

Death to Franklin, News, and Trade Gothic!

>>>Just show your bosses Meta or Myriad, both of which come in huge families, and a text setting of either vs Ariel

I might just do that!

In fact, I've already got their sympathy. However, the requirement to transmit in Word format means that the recipient PC must have whatever face is used. So Arial it is.

There's no solution. We can educate users in how to embed, but we can't make them save two versions of every document (ie. one with fonts editable, one with them embedded for sending via email).

I suppose we could implement a script on the email server, which would convert to PDF any Word document it saw leaving the building. However, this would also intercept documents which are deliberately sent in an editable form, so it's no good.

The only other thing I can think of: a future version of MS Office could let you save/transmit fonts used in a document, and keep them editable on recipient machines, *but only for that document*. If you cut and pasted to a new document, you'd paste in Times New Roman (or whatever default).

For this to happen, though, would require (a) Microsoft to write a better version of Acrobat than Adobe, and (b) Foundries to allow editable versions of their faces to ship (albeit in limited form) without royalties.

In other words, it's never gonna happen.

Here's hoping MS expand their type library sometime soon. In another 15 years, the ubiquity of Arial may pervade my very soul.