http://typophile.com/node/89329

When I saw the title, I hoped for a general discussion on the topic. It’s obviously needed, with so much hostility against these kind of projects.

Gimmicky fund raising that trumps the actual concept/process/result/thinking of the design is not a good showcase for the "type industry". Good typefaces that are both thoughtfully produced and successfully explained to the public would be much better at helping people understand what good type is all about (which is also the solution for a market over saturated with mediocre and pointless options).

The "Valuco" Kickstarter project really rubbed me the wrong way, as did Google Webfonts' constant endorsement of the platform to fund their rubbish fonts.

Just build the font. Don't ask us for money upfront, and then also charge for the font. If people like it, they will buy it. End of.

Agree with Trevor. And certainly don’t advertise them as “*free.”

*As long as you give me money now so I can give it to you for “free” later.

Here's a type-design kickstarter of a different flavor: a new foundry type.

"Just build the font. Don't ask us for money upfront."

Why take the risky financial route when there's an alternative?

"and then also charge for the font"

That's what Kickstarter is.

I was referring to multiple Kickstarter projects that asked for donations to cover the overhead/upfront costs of creating a font, and then charged for the font after it was complete.

Either ask users to cover the overhead and release it for free, or do the labor yourself and charge for the font upon release. Trying to charge twice for the same product is shady and unfair.

Couldn’t we call Kickstarter shady in and of itself? I don’t know the rules, but what if someone wants to raise $100 to release something for “free” and they only get $50, so they never release it. Do they simply pocket the $50?

The rules are right on the site.

Every Kickstarter project must be fully funded before its time expires or no money changes hands.

All things being equal, personally I can't see
anything wrong with using a Kickstarter approach.

hhp

Trying to charge twice for the same product is shady and unfair.

Managing to charge twice for the same product is utterly clever, from a merchand’s point of view ;-)

We should not turn to unduely moralize about it. Frankly, at the end of the day it’s about marketing our work. To possibly develop new channels of gaining profit. What’s wrong with that?

Having said this, I still feel kickstarting a font project may be an intersting option to go for. Why? Well, the fontist sits in his/her laboratorium breeding upon a new groundbreaking font idea. He estimates the amount of labour neccessary to get it done, to get it shipped to the market. He (she) estimates the time it will take, the costs of that time ... you understand. “Will the market pay back?”
But now he turns to ask the public *in advance* what they make of the concept. Is it any good? Is it worthwhile, promising? Is it wanted? Would anyone give a penny for its success? Worthy questions, i.m.o. Maybe Kickstarter functions similar to a stock exchange: people deal with estimations and expectations. – I’m just curious.

It’s fairly new and fragile. Let’s monitor it with care.

Recently I thought about announcing a typeface which would get licenced only to a fixed number of licencees. A kind of limitation, similar to local limitation (“Chattanooga”), which may or may not add value to the product by the implementation of shortage. Which means: exclusivity.

As I’ve mentioned before, Kickstarter is a good way for foundries/type designers to form a relationship with their customers, and even accomodates feedback into the design process.

I love Kickstarter as a service. I think it's one of the best uses of the web in its short history. I just think some projects are using it in (most likely unknowingly) questionable ways.

"Trying to charge twice for the same product is shady and unfair."

No it's not. No one is getting charged twice.

Spending a few quids on an unoriginal, poor quality free font is ok. I just wish they had a layer of (constructive) professional critique prior to presenting the projects. Think business mentoring.

… a layer of (constructive) professional critique prior to presenting the projects

I can’t imagine how you would manage this. “Please give advice for my design” and “please donate for its production” at once??

Andreas: I think it’s probably out of the scope of Kickstarter, but projects could be reviewed by someone with professional experience in the field on submission. The cost could be covered by a submission fee.
Perhaps a better approach for the type community is more serious critique of these kind of public projects. When Roboto came out Typographica published a piece on its design and M. Butterick wrote a piece on the Google Web Fonts a while back — both examples of the kind of critique we need.

We have music critics, but mostly just type praisers.

Kickstarter is meant to fund things that couldn't happen without an outlay of expenses. Here we're often seeing it used to promote a font that appears to be basically done and ransom its release. There is no investment in printing costs or camera rentals or anything of that nature (assuming you already have the software you're using), so it comes down to convincing people that there is still $X worth of work to be done and that you'll do it.

@Cerulean You nailed it. That was exactly my point.

Most type design projects I've seen are charging for labor that's already 90% done, and basically using Kickstarter as more of a PR play than an actual means of fundraising.

"We have music critics"

And has that really change the quality of any particular music? No.

"Kickstarter is meant to fund things that couldn't happen without an outlay of expenses. "

It's not really meant for any specific model. It's basically "do you like this enough to be willing to pay in advance?" or, as stated, PR. Or whatever people can morph it into.

There's some stuff I find silly that people are willing to pay for up front, but who am I to judge? If it establishes a new product, more power to them.

alu: I think yes. It definitely has.

We have music critics, but mostly just type praisers.

Put this way, it seems a bit of a stretch to me.
Anyway, music critics do their thing only "after the fact", they don't go into recording studios giving advice.

Darrel, are you implying that Typophile critiques don't help the designs?

hhp

We have music critics, but mostly just type praisers.

There is certainly something to think about it. Why is it as you describe?

Who would be the addressee of substantial typeface critique? If any??

I remember the late Max Caflish wrote thorough type reviews in the Swiss magazine Typographische Monatsblätter – gone by.
What would be the proper forum today for such editorial work? Who would read it?

I sometimes feel that much of font publicity generated today is just received by fellow fontmen, hence competitors. Therefore the mass of it turns out to be just praise, to drown your neighbour.

"Darrel, are you implying that Typophile critiques don't help the designs?"

Oh, not at all! I'm saying that industry critics do not, alone, make the industry produce better product. It may help particular artists, for sure.

> the late Max Caflish wrote thorough type reviews

Too late. Reviews are best before release.

hhp

I toyed with the idea of getting a kickstarter going for my typeface. It went as far as getting everything approved by Kickstarter – I just never launched it.

My intention was to help fund my research. As my typeface is intended to cover many latin orthographies which are normally ignored (and have a very limited amount of available information), I thought it might be a good idea to use something like Kickstarter to help raise funds to make my typeface as useful and accurate as possible (to both expedite the development process and as I have nearly exhausted my own "research" funds).

At the present time, I still go back and forth about whether or not I should go through with the idea but in the end, I don't see a problem using Kickstarter is the purpose is something other than "drawing a typeface takes a long time and I want money now", in which case, I'd suggest finding something other than type design as a source of income.

Kickstart-financing the development of fonts is UN-American (irony intended). It is waylaying the risk of not being paid for producing something, putting in the hours and the work, etc.
Designing type is a business, with the usual dilemma’s of considering investment versus probable returns. Every other aspect of type design falls into the category of ‘amateurs’.

"No one is paying twice."

Exactly. One of the many uses of Kickstarter is pre-selling a product to fund its development. If you can convince people to buy something before it exists (using charm, evidence of past achievement, or strength of concept) then more power to you.

Kickstart-financing the development of fonts is UN-American (irony intended). It is waylaying the risk of not being paid for producing something, putting in the hours and the work, etc.

Some type designers commonly never finish a typeface unless a client pays for the development up front. What’s the difference between using Kickstarter to get funds for finishing a design and sitting on the design for ten or fifteen years until a client finally pays to develop it into a family?

There are many economic models for type production.

I’ve never come across a criticism of arguably the predominant North American method, which is a typeface commissioned by a publication, exclusively licenced for a few years, then retailed. And yet this model tends to commit accomplished type designers to producing unimaginative conservative designs, often “revivals”.

Similarly, OEM types commissioned by digital device manufacturers tend to a perfunctory and corporate blandness.

Such designs are extremely useful and functional, but IMO (and I’ve contributed to these genres) uninspiring.

Even designing retail fonts without any form of pre-payment, one can readily strightjacket oneself by catering to the ecology of the market with a me-too style.

Kickstarter-funded type designs have a degree of autonomy, in that the type designs themselves are only part of the funders’ engagement, with rewards such as letterpress specimens being a strong carrot.

The most interesting new types identify sparsely populated or emergent niches, create new breeds (e.g. Ambicase), or demonstrate virtuosity informed by taste, style and drawing ability, such as the work of von Döhren and Hernández.

**

Unless they are down on their luck, I don’t see why established type designers would require kickstarting, as their accumulated body of work (not to mention commissions) provides ongoing income during the development of new types. So Kickstarter appears to function for those outside the mainstream, or novices.

Nonetheless, an established type designer might use Kickstarter to connect with customers, or as a medium for developing specimens, which as we all know are a huge part of type culture.

> Kickstarter is pre-selling a product to fund its development

And that actually isn't all that uncommon in business. If a new client hires me to design a brochure and I want 50% of my fee up front, they are funding the development of a piece that doesn't exist yet. Same thing with an architect asking for a retainer, etc.

Perhaps it's not exactly the same thing, since those are custom projects for a specific client, but my point is that paying up front to fund development is not that unusual.

I hate not being able to spell! I can write a book on this subject as I have a font on KickStarter right now. The funding goal was a whopping $1.00. The font was started 17 years ago but I would use it from time to time in secondary display settings as it was exclusively designed to be used.

Please read this post
http://typophile.com/node/89670

my KickStarter font is at
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2112689177/man-greater-than-money?re...

More inf to come.

Defining your own commission is something quite different from receiving a commission.

Kickstarter is typically used for getting a design produced, a book (that’s already being written) getting printed, a documentary (that has been developed) put into production. IMO that’s different from kickstarting a typeface, a discipline where the design is the process.

If you google cases where Kickstarter-projects went totally off course, you will find a common denominator: most of these started with an incomplete design or tentative idea, with initiators that did not comprehend the process of bringing an idea to fruition.

Just my 2 cts, anyway. Feel free to Kickstart all or any of your type projects (but don’t count on me funding that).

KickStarter only seams to promote a project after they have raised a good deal of capital. So although, as of this writing the Man Greater Than Money Font is 6,800% funded, I receive no promotion from KickStarter because the dollar amount raised is $68.00.

Please read this post
http://typophile.com/node/89670

my KickStarter font is at
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2112689177/man-greater-than-money?re...

More inf to come.

Kickstarter will promote your project if it is novel or interesting, and has nothing to do with the raised amount. Trying to raise money for a pre-designed font for sale isn't that interesting.

Some people have seen some success trying to kickstart font production for personal profit, but I don't think that will last long. People will tire of it. The pre-existing model of creating fonts "on spec" will be the predominate model after Kickstarter's novelty wears off. That said, kickstarter and it's ilk are fantastic entrepreneurial tools that will start many businesses and ideas over our lifetimes.

The invisible hand will choose.

A kickstarter's value is in the idea or the utility of the idea, and a font idea probably won't float if the idea benefits just the designer; a community generally needs to benefit.

From a pure dollars and cents perspective, the Chatype project is being done at a (huge) loss. But the utility to the Chattanooga community will be enormous, and the collateral benefit to the typographic and design community will be even larger. The press response Chatype has received is amazing, and I think the idea will spark custom, limited typefaces all over the USA.

Has anyone thought of bring up the concept of “Disneyfication” in this context? In Halifax, Nova Scotia, the largest industry is tourism. As such, the majority of our waterfront has been transformed into a tacky tourist version of itself, where they force minimum wage employees in taverns and the like to dress up in period costumes, walk along the boardwalk, sing old-tyme sailor tunes &c, all veiled in the spirit of cultural preservation.

It’s an interesting discussion though. Imagine an endangered species. You can let it die, or put it in a cage and breed it. However, by caging it, even though you are keeping it alive, you are removing it’s natural ability to adapt and thrive in a changing environment, ultimately working against your own end.

The closest real-world example I can think of is the passing of Bill 101 in Québec city, 1997. It legally required you to have all of your signage with French as the predominant language ie; bigger and at the top. This was very controversial at the time.

But again, it raises the question, what is the best way to preserve, or in the case of Chattanooga and Chatype, promote, a culture in a natural and sustainable fashion?

Will there be city-wide brand strategy? Signage restrictions? An identity-standards manual for all businesses? What if my business is from a different culture? Am I still required to use Chatype?

Food for thought.

> Signage restrictions? An identity-standards
> manual for all businesses?

Most cities have signage restrictions (size, location, illumination, etc.) and require businesses to obtain permits before erecting new signs. The rules are typically much more restrictive in upscale or historic areas.

But requiring that all merchants use the same typeface would not only be a dumb idea but also would certainly result in a rebellion by local merchants and city officials would get the boot at the next election.

But using it for official city signs and projects would be a more realistic and doable goal.

"Will there be city-wide brand strategy? Signage restrictions? An identity-standards manual for all businesses? What if my business is from a different culture? Am I still required to use Chatype?"

No to all. We are just putting the tools into the designers hands. No directive from on high to use it. No brand manual, nothing. If a designer wants to incorporate it into the city brand someday (and that is likely) then they make the choice.

That said, local designers are embracing it enthusiastically, but they will be the ones to choose what to do with it.

I actually this is the perfect opportunity to educate
people about the technical limits of setting a given
font. Not least: What size does it work best at?

You should also use it to promote
some formal education on Cherokee.

hhp