How many typeface projects do you have going at any given time?

Sujan Sundareswaran

And I mean completely different faces, not weights. How many clients/self-started project do you work on concurrently? And if many, how often do you jump between them?

Chris Lozos

I have worked on as many as 12 but I don't recommend it.  These days, maybe two at a time.

Sujan Sundareswaran

@chris Twelve? Wow. That is scary.

Vasil Stanev

7

AbrahamLee

I’ve got about 8 on my plate right now, with more on the back-burner.

Thomas Phinney

It really depends on your definition of “concurrently.” How long must a typeface be on hold before I no longer count is as one I am working on?

George Thomas

@Thomas Phinney-- I would say that moment would come when you decide it is ready to release. Sometimes I put off a release for quite some time just in case something occurs to me which will improve it. That's counts as "still working on it", maybe.

Sujan Sundareswaran

@Thomas Phinney — @George Thomas is right, a project isn’t dropped until you know you don’t want to pick it up again. Having it on the backburner is fine. Let me put it this way— How many WIP projects do you have going, projects that you have not abandoned?

John Hudson

I typically have work for three clients at various stages at any given time, although this doesn't necessarily mean I'm working on designs concurrently. I try to schedule the work so that I can dedicate myself to an individual design for an extended period, although sometimes a change is refreshing.

Mark Simonson

I have around 30 fonts/font families on the back burner, some of which have been there for over ten years, but more than half started within the last year.

These are almost all self-initiated typeface projects for the retail market (I almost never take client work anymore) where I have done at least a draft of the upper- and lowercase, sometimes multiple weights/styles.

At any given time, I only have two or three projects that are on the "front burner". When I decide to complete one of them, I will set everything else aside and work on that project exclusively until it is done.

I also sometimes make updates to released typefaces, either self-initiated or because of customer requests and feedback.

Beau Williamson

I have nine on the go, but try to focus on just one, dipping into the others as needed to not go crazy.

Thomas Phinney

It appears I also have nine that are not abandoned.

“Abandoned” defined as: I am reasonably sure I will never go work on them again.

Paul Miller

Too many, but I only work on one at once.

DanielNisbet

I'm going back and forth between two right now. I suspect as soon as one starts to feel like it has more promise, I'll probably drop my focus on the other one.

Matt Heximer

In a related question, how many "abandoned" Typeface projects do you have filed away in the drawers? Have you ever stumbled across one of those abandoned projects years later, only to pick it up again and carry it across the finish line?

Russell McGorman

Define abandoned, Matt. if it exists on a drive, a CD, or a server farm in Arizona we call "The Cloud", I may still pull it up at any time and finish it. (like all those books on the shelf I mean to read some day. ... I have about 4 or five. Joking aside, they were abandoned for good reasons. 

Mark Simonson

I think I have around 20-30 abandoned font projects (project that I spent a non-trivial amount of time on but decided not to finish). Sometimes I pick these up again (included in my back burner projects mentioned above).

Dyana Weissman

Right now I have 4 active projects I am working on—meaning they are for clients who have deadlines. This is one too many, but some projects are hard to turn down/delegate. And it's too hot to go anywhere anyway. My self-started projects are all completely off my radar. It's been busy, but it's not always this busy, usually in the winter months things taper off and pick up again in the spring. 

How often I jump between them depends on many factors. Usually, I try to break things up in sections and do one section at a time, per project, and get the one with the closest deadline done first. The sections can vary from hours to days. If a project or section is really quick, I might get it out of the way first, regardless of deadlines. If a section is really unpleasant, it can be nice to balance it with something more fun, and break it up.

Nick Shinn

Would that “projects” meant just making fonts, and didn’t include specimens and banners and press releases and all that other marketing stuff.

Ray Larabie

Just one.

Johannes Neumeier

Grey dots are published ones, empty ones are in the desk drawer, colors from green to red based on level of activity working on it. And that’s retail projects only. I like the color system because I allow myself to only have one on red, but at the same time I see those that I have marked for advancing, and at what stage or amount of work they are at.

P.S.: Had to blur the work in progress -folder names; Some of them are NSFW, others I might actually end up using

Chris Lozos

Now that I look back and see the definition of "got going" I will say that I have 21 going now but only 4 that show visible movement ;-)

Sujan Sundareswaran

Nick Shinn said:

Would that “projects” meant just making fonts, and didn’t include specimens and banners and press releases and all that other marketing stuff.

Yup, actual typeface, not just lettering work.