You raise a good point.
The answer is it not always that easy.

1. The best solution is that the budget is expansive enough to allow the purchase of font(s) in the development process.

2. Another solution is to contact the foundry and secure the font on a trail basis. (some foundaries understandably won’t do this).

3. A third solution is to substitute a similar font in its place and sell the client a paper print out of the font style you want to use. This approach is often flawed as a lot of clients will say why am I having to pay or an extra font when the one you have used looks perfectly OK.

4. My preferred solution is to factor in font purchases when I quote up front for the job, not giving the client the option. If you think about it, even if you were to use the fonts that come ’free’ with, for example the Creative Suite, you have had to pay for them indirectly when you purchased the software. It makes business sense to pass on the cost of font licensing in the same way you would pass on the cost of laser prints, writing CD-R’s etc etc...

I totally agree with belleisle... from my experience it’s better to raise your fee to cover typeface purchases and factor it in when you work out the initial budget.

Or else people do tend to question it and you end up being forced to limit your choices. As designers we don’t have a lot of expenses once we have all the equipment – so treat it as you would treat anything else you outsource (photography, illustration...).

If there’s no way you can raise the initial funds – consider billing half up front.

But in this case you can only really either just go for it and get back the cost in your bill, or try and see if the foundry will let you have a trial version.

Village also do a thing where if you purchase one weight (pretty affordable) you can go back and purchase the family at the discount package price.

Stag Sans Medium looks fairly similar to FF Clan Pro.

Ed

Yeah I was wondering about it and one solution is to factor in the cost of fonts upfront or invest on the font and if they buy the look I can bill them the cost. I’m trying to make it a point to educate clients on the strategic importance using unique fonts rather just using overused/general fonts cause it’s free(most of the time they think it is anyway)

I suppose the question would be, what are you being paid for this identity design. If you are doing it on the cheap then the $314.00 for FF Clan Pro may be a budget buster, but if you are charging industry rates, than a $314.00 investment to license the fonts so you can put forth a strong proposal seems like a small price to pay.

And what happens when your client accepts your font proposal. Most likely they are going to have to invest in a substantial company-wide license to utilize the fonts in your identity program. No?

James