Can Acumin Variable Concept be licensed?

J. Bridges

Can Acumin Variable Concept be licensed? If so, where? All I can find are free for personal use or non-variable versions at MyFonts or Adobe fonts. I tried activating the regular versions at Adobe fonts but it is not matching the font in an Adobe Illustrator file that someone sent me. Thanks!

Christopher Slye

To the best of my knowledge, no, it is only available along with certain Creative Cloud apps (and it should not be available “free for personal use” anywhere outside of that). The “concept” VFs are probably never going to be available for standalone licensing — although I am looking forward to their full-featured versions being available one of these days.

I am under the impression that it should come along with any current installation of Adobe Illustrator (via Creative Cloud). Are you saying you don’t see it in your font menu there?

Justin Penner

My copy of Acumin Variable Concept is located in:

/Applications/Adobe InDesign 2022/Resources/Required/fonts/AcuminVariableConcept.otf

Illustrator does not have a folder of fonts like this, but I am able to use Acumin Var in Illustrator on my machine, so maybe you just need to install InDesign? I'm not sure if those InDesign fonts are shared with all Adobe apps, or if there's another copy of Acumin Var hiding somewhere on my system.

J. Bridges

No. It is in my font menu. I was just not sure where it came from and if I had a license to use it for commercial work.

Justin Penner

Not a lawyer, but my take on this would be that any fonts found in that folder were distributed as part of your Creative Cloud software and should fall under Adobe's General Terms of Use. I think they would be considered as "content files" defined in section 3.6:

3.6 Content Files. “Content Files” means Adobe assets provided as part of the Services and Software. Unless documentation or specific licenses (including but not limited to Additional Terms) state otherwise, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, and non-transferable license to use the Content Files to create your end use (i.e., the derivative application or product authored by you) into which the Content Files, or derivations thereof, are embedded for your use (“End Use”). You may modify the Content Files prior to embedding them in the End Use. You may reproduce and distribute Content Files only in connection with your End Use, however, under no circumstances can you distribute the Content Files on a stand-alone basis, outside of the End Use.

That sounds like a fairly permissive license if you apply it to fonts.

Christopher Slye

Use of fonts that are bundled with Adobe software is actually covered by the Software additional terms — currently in Section 2.1 “Font Software”. The license allows commercial use. (Or more precisely, it doesn’t disallow it.)

J. Bridges

****UPDATE!****

Thanks for the info.

This font comes bundled with Illustrator CC and Photoshop CC apps.

I called Adobe and the guy said I was free to use it for commercial work. I asked if he could provide me with a license or a webpage where I might read it and he said no.

The version I purchased at MyFonts did not match the version that could be activated thru Adobe Fonts in Adobe Illustrator so I used the activated version that is not a variable font.

In the end the pre-press house did not have access to the Adobe activated font for reasons I do not understand. Maybe they are using version CS6 of Illustrator. So, I ended up using another font instead of Acumin.

I was reluctant to share my version of the bundled Acumin font because I was not sure the license is shareable to non CC users.

If I outlined the fonts would I have been honoring the license? I have no clue.

In an attempt to always make sure I am 100% legit with font licenses I still come upon time consuming BS that is really stupid. Super aggravated.

Christopher Slye

That all sounds frustrating and ridiculous. The license for Creative Cloud and all its applications and services is here: https://www.adobe.com/legal/terms.html (The support person should have known this.)

You’ll notice Section 1.2 “Additional Terms”, which includes a link for “Software”, a.k.a. “Software Additional Terms”. There, Section 2.1 covers “Font Software”, which refers to fonts that are bundled with applications you install (not the Adobe Fonts service, which has its own terms of service).