What adds value to a font?

Ray Larabie

I’d like to hear @Ray Larabie’s opinion on language/script expansions. He’s added Vietnamese, Cyrillic, and Greek to lots of his fonts.

Those additions have had no notable effect on my sales. I think there's probably a long term advantage to supporting more languages in common designs, like DIN, typewriter, highway signage, Clarendon, Bodoni, etc. In those cases, the customer might be weighing price vs. features when deciding which one to go for. But I'm guessing.

Rob Barba

Chris Lozos said:

Cheap and good are not the same.  Remember back when Jos released free fonts? A person starting out does not have the luxury of a seasoned successful designer with corporate backing.

I am going to wholeheartedly back this.  One of my best-selling fonts, ironically was given out for free personal/paid commercial; eventually everyone started buying it.  Contrarily, I've seen some gorgeous free fonts and some cheap fonts I wouldn't even bother paying the "pay what you like fee", because they're trash.  Your mileage will obviously vary on this, but price shouldn't be by any means your only barometer on what a good font is.

Rob Barba

Nick Shinn said:

It’s probably a good idea to wait to see whether a typeface is popular in Latin, before adding Cyrillic and/or Greek.

Funny you mention that; I specifically got a commission to modify one of my fonts to add Cyrillic and Greek because the client loved the Latin set. So count me in agreement on this.

Nick Curtis

Thanks to all for your input—it has turned out to be a real wake-up call. Henceforth, you can call me Don Quixote.

Andreas Stötzner

What adds value to a font?

• A ß which is not biased by a ſ-s concept.
• A decent selection of monetary signs.
• glyphs of a, e, s which appear being not too small.