[Are you ready for this hyperlink-tastic rant I wrote during a five-hour layover in Cincinnati? Here goes:] I love free things just as much as the rest of you. I’m an advocate for free culture, open source software, and fighting overly restrictive copyright laws. However, when it comes to free fonts, there are some important distinctions to be made. This is certainly not a new debate in the typography world, just adding my thoughts to share with my community and network.
Professional fonts can cost hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands. That may sound like a lot for just a font, but high end magazines, newspapers, and graphic design firms can afford it. Designing a font is quite a fine art and science, and fonts take months, sometimes years to design; typographers should be compensated for their work. Did you know it’s possible to make a living designing fonts? I know a recent Hampshire alum who does just that – what a cool job!
However, we students, amateurs, and hobbyists can’t afford such things, so what do we do if we feel dubious about where our fonts are coming from?
You’ll notice on sites like Dafont (my favorite free font database), many fonts say “free for personal use.” This generally means any non-commercial project, but the lines are fuzzy. It’s worth mentioning that some “free” fonts are likely ripoffs, since the software is more accessible these days and it’s easy to change a few strokes on a font and then call it your own. It is unlikely font foundries are going to hunt you down if you pirate or ripoff their fonts – unless you are a large corporation like NBC, or your project is seen in a wider public sphere. Font lawsuits have happened a number of times, and the font foundries always win.
Recently I have come across more and more public domain and open source fonts, which is where things get exciting. One particular group that appears to be at the forefront of this is the League of Movable Type. An excerpt from their manifesto:
This revolution is not a movement against type foundries and type designers; it’s quite the opposite. The kind of revolution we want is a change in the way people think about doing business. We want type foundries and typographers to start thinking, “Maybe there’s nothing wrong with giving things away sometimes.” It’s not always about the money, sometimes it’s also about making a contribution to the society, in this case, the design community. Giving one typeface away for free will most likely only boost sales, and it’s a good deed. We want more people to look at it like that: like they have a responsibility to do something good for their peers. We’re not asking type designers and type foundries to sacrifice profit, we’re asking them to contribute to a greater cause, to create a community where we not only have a high design standard for print and web alike, but also a community where we’re able to share our creations, knowledge, and expertise with our peers and the world.
There are many collections now, thanks to Smashing Magazine and others, of high quality professional fonts that have been released under a Creative Commons or some other kind of open source license. You can even search on Dafont for just fonts that are public domain. HOWEVER, even these seemingly well-intentioned open source folks are HOTLY DEBATED! in the typography world.
Now that there are so many fonts available (of all license varieties), maybe the real question should be, Do we need more fonts? – This final linked article is very geeky (and of course the conclusion is that we DO need more fonts), but a worthwhile read, I promise! An excerpt:
The most common question I get about being a type designer is this: “Aren’t there enough typefaces already?” The best response I have ever heard to this question is, “You know, I heard the same thing about people!” It is quite funny but probably comes across a bit rude, especially to people you have just met. For a long time, the best response I could come up with was a more diplomatic, although less articulate, “Oh, well you know, ha ha.” And then I would try to change the subject. “Aren’t there enough typefaces already?” isn’t a bad question though. There are a lot of typefaces. Even to a type designer, it can seem like everything has already been done…
