... because the original is Magnus Rakeng's inimitable and
very popular Radio, available from Thirstype.

Bingo! Thanks a lot!

This is one is everywhere right now, it's crazy!

Sure is pricey, though! Ye gods.

come on
it's cheap

Hahahahahaha. Hi Magnus, you are right and wrong, but I agree it's
not particularly expensive when you take into account all the factors.
It's just that some three weight font families are cheaper, but some are
way more expensive as well, so let's not complain.

BTW Welcome to Typophile. I'm really thrilled to have you here.
Love your work, it truly is original, inventive and beautiful. And
Radio is the perfect alternative for all that 70s nostalgia. How
much more Candice and Cooper Black Italic can we handle?

thanks for the kind words yves! i have been a typophile reader for a while now, i just haven't been very active in contributing to the discussions.

Yeah, great font and greeeat name, man.

hei magnus! du er dansk ser jeg. da m

It's all Greek to me.

I wonder why it is, that people who design type think the prices are reasonable, and people who don't, think they are expensive.

Non-type designers: try designing an original typeface from scratch to the finished product, then you may revise your opinions of what is expensive!

Exactly. What strikes me is that the prices of typefaces have
steadily decreased over the years (I used to be one third of
FontShop Belgium-Netherlands-Luxemburg, so I should
know) and people still moan about what I perceive to be
reasonable to frankly cheap prices. For example, Lineto is
considered an expensive type library whereas IMHO the
prices are correct. It's all a matter of public perception being
jarred by widespread piracy.

This is a personal statement, absolutely not targeted at
anyone in particular, so please don't shoot the messenger.

Yes, designing good type is hard work. Some people think all your fancy programs do all the designing for you.

Magnus R: Ja det er fint n

i can only speak for myslef but i spend A LOT of time on my faces. i sure don't do it for the money (that would have been crazy) but the small royaltycheck i get 4 times a year is like a pat on the back saying someone out there appreciates your work.

Mea culpa! I didn't mean to start a firestorm here but I'm an independent designer who can't afford to drop upwards of $50 for just a single font. I like Emigre's price structure - generally $100 gets you about 4 styles (italic, alternate, sc, etc.) I used to work for a company that bought fonts as needed, and we built that into the job budget, but it's hard to get a client to pony up these days. It makes me less likely to experiment with the more outre fonts and more inclined to stick with the ones I already have (thousands), hence less exposure for you font designers.

I love type and do very much appreciate all the creativity and hard work that goes into designing a font.

I do second Patricia' last bit.
But I think buying fonts (good ones, useful ones) is a regular business expense, just like other software. We kind of budget for this (eg I look at the current account and go for a font if there's not too much red showing).
And what's more: if you can give your clients something that's exceptional because of the fonts used, they won't mind paying *more* for it.

You don't have the same clients I have!

---

quote:

I didn't mean to start a firestorm here

---

I don't think you did, Patricia, I think you started a very
interesting and relevant discussion.

---

quote:

the small royaltycheck i get 4 times a year is like a pat on
the back saying someone out there appreciates your work.

---

That, and the gazillion times you see it in use I suppose?

It's like Zuzanna Licko once said she'd gladly give away her
fonts (almost) for free if she would receive royalties for every
time one of her type designs was used - just like in the music
industry.

Just a random thought before I get to work: the bananas
I purchase at the supermarket cost one and a half time as
much as the "regular" kind, because they're Fair Trade. And
no I am not particularly rich, mind you.

Most typefaces seem to me reasonably priced. As a matter of fact, I tend to find them cheap given the trouble the designers went through. Of course prices can only be kept low as far as they are sold by the thousands.

Very specialized types (for instance, Van den Kere) are expensive, and that is a shame. Bad marketing or poor discrimination by buyers, who will settle for Adobe Garamond instead?

(I'm not looking down on Adobe Garamond: it was a very worthy and consciencious effort to bring back the Garamond look, quite lost in other 'true' Garamonds; as a matter of fact I use it a lot).

Rodrigo de S

I think usage has something to do with perception of pricing. If you are a designer using a font on a one time project it could be seen as expensive, but if you are involved with a publication and use it often then its relatively cheep.

But the perception here in New York City is the clients don't want to spend one dime more than they can get away with. The economy isn't that good.

>>Very specialized types (for instance, Van den Kere) are expensive, and that is a shame. Bad marketing or poor discrimination by buyers, who will settle for Adobe Garamond instead?

Foundries like TETF probably have to weigh the balance between custom jobs and doing "public domain" commercial fonts. Just consider the time a designer invests in something as exclusive as Van den Keere -- knocking out a Corporate font based on something existing (as is usage nowadays) could earn you a lot more...

To continue what Daniel said, if your client is a corporation or major publisher then a font is just a line item in the budget. If your client is an independent filmmaker or small restauranteur, they're not going to be so eager to purchase a new font. And those smaller jobs are often the ones that call for more interesting type treatments.

The way I look at it, current font prices, which hover around $30 per font, are a good value. I base this on the price of a sheet of Letraset in 1980 which was about $10. If you take into account inflation, this would be about $25 in 2004 dollars. Modern fonts are a much better value than a sheet of Letraset (unlimited characters and sizes, the characters are never crooked, never crack, space themselves automatically, huge selection, etc.) and yet they cost only a little more. Consider also that a fonts for typesetting machines back then cost hundreds of dollars.

I think that the perception that some have about font prices comes from the fact that you get them for free or almost free with operating systems, software bundles, etc. combined with all the free fonts given away by hobbyist font designers. Both of these cases are unfair comparisons to retail fonts. In the first case, this is like saying toasters should be cheaper because your bank gives them away when you open a new account. In the second case, hobbyist fonts are not usually very well made or complete.

Ultimately, the price has to be low enough that customers will pay it and high enough that font developers can make enough to make the effort worthwhile. It seems like it's there now.

The question I have is: If font prices were substantially lower, would substantially more people buy them? In other words, could font developers make more money if prices were lower? For instance, if a font is sold at half price, I'd have to have more than twice as many orders because my operational overhead would go up (more transaction costs, more potential support costs, etc.).

I agree with Patricia but I guess it all really comes to the thing that I say to my clients... "Good, fast, cheap - choose any two". That's the reality of most production... sadly, my clients tend to choose "cheap and fast". Oh well, such is life. The thing that I find difficult to incorporate into my billing structure is the amount of time I spend font-matching and then hunting down some obscure variation of a typeface only to find out that the client really has no visual literacy whatsoever.

Recently, I went through all the hassle of doing a (IMHO) spiffy layout with a coehesive and lucid use of faces - client comes back with content change - I advise that now it physically will not fit on the page - they say... "that's ok why don't you just squish it all to fit..." Sheesh!

The reality of being a designer is that you're not only in competition with other designers, but nowadays you're in competition with the quick-copy down the road, the client's kid who is "really good with computers", the client's PA or accounts clerk, their partner who did their party invites and everybody said they were really great, et al.

The cost of fonts is reasonable I think - don't get me wrong - but when the difference between getting a job or not comes down to a very tight margin, and the fact that most clients are visually illiterate from my experience, then I find myself going for the freebies.

End result?

Font designers get paid a pittance and more visual pollution gets released in to the marketplace which then sets a benchmark that is emulated by the copycats... gets rather depressing actually.

Sorry for bringing you down... man.

Now it's my turn.

Me a cowboy, me a cowboy, me a mexican cowboy!

Maybe what I'm about to say will simply get me booed... =D

I license type as often as I dare. My AMEX bill can attest to that. I don't charge my clients for the type. I know I will more than likely use the typefaces again. I look at them as a business expense which gets added to this list I show to my accountant every year come February.

Typefaces are another tool. Clients don't necessarily care about them as a tool, perhaps not as much as other things, but as a designer it is important to have whatever tools you can at your disposal.

If I were to license a TEFF typeface I would simply use it as often as I could. =D

As for what you, Mark, wrote ... I honestly don't think selling your typefaces for less would mean you'd sell more.

"Fast, cheap, good - pick any two" is one of my favorites too. Since fast and good are a given, I really resent the nickel and diming.

I agree that $30 is more than reasonable for a single font, and around $100 for a small package with a few weights or an italic and an alternate. But some of the more boutique foundries charge up to twice that, which usually puts the fonts out of my price range. And since I do already have so many fonts, I can nearly always find something great in my library. It's a pity, though, since if they were cheaper I'd be more likely to purchase them just because I like them, and then try to find a use.

Alot of what I see out their is more about education then the cost of fonts. I use to work at an ad agency and one of the art directors wanted to use a font but the license would cost $300. The account rep went nuts, saying they couldn't afford it, that was until someone mentioned that the media for the ad alone was $30,000 and the retouching for the ad was almost $10,000. The art director got the license

i agree with you tiffany. i see type as a tool i need to do a good job - the same way it's important to keep the other software (and hardware) updated. most of the time i don't charge clients for the type i use. it's an investment and i can use the fonts for other projects later.

I have no time to rejoin the discussion yet but let's just say I'm
on the same page with Tiff and Magnus. I recently was offered
a type family by a friend type designer as a compensation for
work on his website (proofreading and testing). As it was an
extensive family I declined and insisted on purchasing the
license for a job, in order to support both a foundry I regard
highly and the type designer. The purchase ate away half
my profit for this particular job, but as I consider this a general
investment I will be able to use it again and by doing so spread
out the cost over several jobs. Eventually it will allow me to offer
high quality designs to my clients and add a dash of exclusivity
to my work.

As for what you, Mark, wrote ... I honestly don't think selling your typefaces for less would mean you'd sell more.

That's my impression, too. I think if you get much lower than that (not counting multi-font deals) people will start wondering what's wrong with them and it may actually hurt sales.

As far as buying fonts for clients, I also don't pass the cost directly on to clients. The clients aren't going to use them anyway so why should they pay for them? If they are going to use them, then I insist that they get their own license as needed. Every font I buy simply becomes part of my growing library.

By the way, Magnus, let me take this opportunity to say that I think Radio is a very cool font. Very nicely done.

In my opinion, most of the time, type is reasonably priced, especially in light of how long good type takes to develop. But even as a lover of type sometimes type prices can be out of reach for a small studio. Beautiful type like DfType's Rialto costs 570 Euros (and involves a complex bank transfer), and Lineto fonts are like $150 per weight(!), if I'm reading those prices correctly. These $100 and more a weight prices put these great fonts out of my reach. Perhaps magazines and larger studios can afford them. Shouldn't they be a teensy bit cheaper (they'd almost certainly sell more) or is exclusivity a factor here?

When a type designer designs a typeface or family for retail sale he/she doesn't know if it will sell or not. You just have to hope that the fonts will catch somebody's eye.

It is a speculative and time-consuming enterprise with no guarantee of success. I spend months designing a font or family. One particular typeface in my collection (I'm not saying which one) has been on sale for a while and hasn't sold one copy.

Now if this was the first font I had designed for retail I would have been very discouraged by the lack of any renumeration and would have probably given it up as a waste of time and effort. Fortunately, this wasn't the case, and I manage to make a living out of type design.

Fonts need to be not sold cheaply so as to encourage designers in their future efforts.

G-Type through Veer.

thank you mark! radio was hard work and lots of fun.