Adding greek

Jeff Peters

A customer wants me to add basic greek (48 glyphs) to one of my fonts.
How much would you charge for this per font style? For the custom work that is, licensing will be on top of that.
Thanks!

JoyceKetterer

First, you need to ask yourself if you want to charge for labor separately from licensing.  That's always my preference because there's just too big a range of licensing needs among potential clients. If so, I usually price labor by master, with a smaller fee for interpolated weights.  Otherwise, customers who don't understand the workflow of making fonts get you into a mess.

Second, I always provide time and dollar quotes when I give a price for labor.  That way, if they need a rush delivery, or double rush, you have prepared them for the idea that will cost more.

Third, always be clear that time to delivery is dependent on timely instructions from them.  You can only guarantee x date if they kick off the project by y date – if not you'll need to recalculate.  Also, you require turn around of z days when they review work in order to stay on schedule.

I'm assuming this is a retail font already, so you may feel you can recoup some of the costs to make the greek, in which case you can use that to offer discounts to the client to encourage the project to happen.

Fourth, make sure your price clearly states how much creative direction they will get.  If your vision is that you will simply make the Greek you would have made without a client, you need to be clear about that.  Clients tend to want to make adjustments to a design they commission, even when it's just a language expansion, which can lead to additional labor.  You'll want to make it clear if that additional labor will be charged separately.

Jeff Peters

Thanks a lot Joyce for all that wisdom, really appriciate it!