Dalton Maag is recruiting

Rafael Saraiva

Hello all,

Dalton Maag is recruiting 4 Font Developers to join its team. Location can be flexible by arrangement.

If you're interested, you'll find the complete job descriptions and more information on how to apply here: https://www.daltonmaag.com/studio/join-us

Thank you!

Paul Hanslow

They're looking for:
Font Dev
Font Dev with Japanese Skills
Font Dev with Cyrillic Skills
Senior Font Dev 

To save people from clicking, and I quote from the position PDFs, "Salary From £33,540 per annum, depending on experience. Salary is reviewed annually", with the Senior Font Dev position "From £50,320 per annum, depending on experience. Salary is reviewed annually".

James Montalbano

£50,320 per annum = US$58,442. Not the greatest salary for a highly skilled position.

Simon Cozens

The US and UK tech industries are not directly comparable.

Nick Shinn

The pound has been falling. 
That £50k salary would have been $100k US in 2007.

James Puckett

And London has a very high cost of living.

Hin-Tak Leung

Yes, typically one adds a £4k or £5k difference when comparing jobs in London and the rest of UK, because rent, transport, food etc all add up. £45k is quite low.

It is not uncommon for people working in London to live outside London along one of the major train lines and pay seasonal train tickets for about £3k per year.

KP Mawhood

With "from" being the operative word, these salaries set a baseline for those "starting out" or "stepping up".

Font dev, salary from £33,540

Senior font dev, salary from £50,320

The phrasing deliberately separates the baseline salary from those "with experience".

Hin-Tak Leung

Those are pretty low figures. Let's take it from the government - if your salary is less than 
£27,295 , you may not need to repay your student loan, the money you borrow from the government to pay for your tuition: 
 https://www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan/what-you-pay .

So £30k is about what you should ask for, outside of London, if you just come out of university, to have some hope of repaying your student loans.

That's for somebody who has absolutely no work experience.

Paul Hanslow

Full time jobs in type are as rare as rocking horse teeth so any graduate looking to get started in the industry may consider Dalton Maag as a good entry point. From people I've spoken to who started there, they have a training period for new hires which is commendable given how complex it can be to understand type design. It's one thing to draw letters, it's a total different skillset to understand production, hinting etc etc. Personally, when I finished the MATD at Reading I looked into Dalton but IIRC they weren't hiring people without EU citizenship (I'm Australian). Also London weather is not my cup of tea.

As Simon says, the UK and US type industries are not directly comparable, and I'd add to this by saying USA and Canada are not directly comparable either when it comes to type jobs. 

Hin-Tak Leung

My figure above already argues that, if you were a UK citizen, taking out a government loan to attend MATD at Reading (plus perhaps another government loan for your degree before that), you should not be looking at any jobs offering less than £30k outside of London, because the job simply does not pay enough to cover your debt on tuition fees to get educated to get there in the first place...

Paul Hanslow

I agree with you but you're dealing in absolutes. Not every student who attends Reading's MATD pays out of their own pocket: some may have wealthy parents, some may have gotten a grant...there are many scenarios and the whole situation is nuanced given that different people have different desires and goals.

Acquiring type knowledge and expertise, while being employed and paid to do so, can be a strong incentive for some budding type designers. I agree with you that Dalton Maag's figures are somewhat low given their geographic location and the expensive cost of living in London. However, some people play the long game i.e. get employed by Dalton, learn as much as possible, move on after a few years and start making more money by going freelance or working for a different type company/foundry. 

I agree with what you're saying Hin-Tak. I really do. Type designers should be compensated fairly for their skills given the expensive cost of acquiring the knowledge within institutions like Reading. The problem is (and I speak from when I attended Reading), little effort is taken towards explaining the type industry as an entity to students: What does a font cost? How do you cost a job if it's exclusive to a client? This knowledge is golden as it gives up-and-coming type designers a framework of their possible worth and what to expect once jumping into the industry. 

Hin-Tak Leung

It does not sound good, when a supposedly better employer in an industry requires that you are independently wealthy or have rich parents, to join them... what does it say about the poorer employers?

Marc Foley

I worked at DaMa from 2011–2015 and had a great time. I was 23 and yes the salary may seem low to US folks but it was actually better than most agencies and startups in London. I was hired as a junior designer and the pay was at least £10k higher than my friends who started as junior graphic designers at top agencies. I don't know how their bonuses rack up these days but for some years, the bonus was around a quarter of my salary.

DaMa's business model is closer to an agency than a tech company. They do have a small library of fonts and IP but they generate most of their revenue from drawing fonts for bluechips. Comparing DaMa to agencies rather than tech companies makes more sense imo.

London is a strange place for salaries. We do not see Bay Area pay unless you're working in banking, hedge funds, private equity or specific areas of law such as m&a. Ok we have some tech giants but they still don't pay as much as the bay. An average salary for a  doctor in London is £54,354 (a shambles I know) which should give us some context.

I look back at my time at DaMa quite fondly. If you're new to the industry, young and hungry, perhaps go for it. You will learn how to do this craft properly. There is a night and day difference between folks who have worked for a foundry which gets top tier clients. Drawing letters is 20% of the work, the rest which isn't taught at school is what you learn here. I'd also like to point out that I don't have a masters degree and was hired pretty much straight out of my undergrad degree.

The living in London part may be difficult. Now in my thirties I don't think I could do it. However, when I was 23-26, I had a great time. The club and music scene was world class. Every weekday something interesting was happening so you're never bored. Don't waste your youth in boring places!

Hin-Tak Leung

I am not sure why people keep talking about US. https://www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan/what-you-pay is UK government figure. £30k is about what you need to have, outside of London, if you borrow any student loans for tuition, to have any hope of repaying it. It is nice to be independently wealthy, or have rich parents, but that's not the point.

FWIW, the official UK government figure for hourly minimum wage for adults is currently £9.50 I think. That's about £18k per year, for unskilled and untrained labour, at 40 hours * 52 weeks minus 25 days.

£18k is the official UK minimum wage for unskilled and untrained labour. That's a context.

Marc Foley

A degree isn't a requirement to work at DaMa. Also, student loans in the UK are written off after 30 years. It's estimated that 83% of student loans in the UK are not going to be paid off. No one is going to face bankruptcy. Only folks who work in white collar jobs will do it under the current system.

DaMa's entry level salary for a font dev is basically double UK minimum wage and much higher than a junior graphic designer based in London. The truth is that wages are what they are due to demand. There are a lot of people chasing these jobs whose skills are at the correct level.

Btw, I'm not independently wealthy or have rich parents. What worked for me was living inside the M25 and then applying when they landed a few big contracts.

I will admit that under the current UK student loan scheme, I'd only go to university if it could build me a money printing press.

Simon Cozens

Hin-Tak Leung said:

I am not sure why people keep talking about US. https://www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan/what-you-pay is UK government figure. £30k is about what you need to have, outside of London, if you borrow any student loans for tuition, to have any hope of repaying it.

We have a different approach to student debt here. Low salaries don't make student debt repayment impossible, they make repayment unnecessary.

Hin-Tak Leung

I suppose work in a minimum wage job for 30 years is a good idea, if the objective is to avoid repaying government student loans. Let's say the tuition money comes from your parents drawing on their pension schemes, or remortgaging the family home to finance your student life style for 30 years till you are in your 50's 😀.

KP Mawhood

Hin-Tak Leung said:

I suppose work in a minimum wage job for 30 years is a good idea, if the objective is to avoid repaying government student loans. Let's say the tuition money comes from your parents drawing on their pension schemes, or remortgaging the family home to finance your student life style for 30 years till you are in your 50's 😀.

There are Brits who actively abuse the system, but I always understood  that as an unavoidable part of the welfare state.

@Hin-Tak Leung Are you acutely familiar with current UK politics and economics?

Hin-Tak Leung

@KP Mawhood as familiar or unfamiliar as the average person who lives in UK (SE England, not too far from London) for the past few decades, I think .

KP Mawhood

@Hin-Tak Leung Then I do not understand your expectations for DaMa's baseline salaries.

In which percentile of UK salaries would you place full-time employed type professionals, who are (1) starting out in a new role or (2) stepping up to senior?

James Montalbano

Years ago I was talking to the guys at Ascender (remember them? matching the dyed shirts at all the conferences). We were discussing compensation for various font work. I did work as a sub-contractor for them. We were talking about available talent in type design and where it was coming from. The subject of recent Reading grads came up, and they all started rolling their eyes. It turns out that all the Reading grads they had interviewed had an overly optimistic view of their worth and were asking for, in Ascender's view, outrageous hourly wages. All had the degree, but had no experience.

Paul Hanslow

This really makes me wonder what Ascender deemed 'overly optimistic' in terms of salary, and what value Reading graduates were placing on their worth.

James Montalbano

IIRC the recent Reading grads were asking for US$200 per hour. Ascender considered that "Overly optimistic" considering their lack of experience.

James Puckett

James Montalbano said:

IIRC the recent Reading grads were asking for US$200 per hour. Ascender considered that "Overly optimistic" considering their lack of experience.

That seems overly optimistic for someone with years of experience unless you’re in NYC or NorCal.

Thomas Phinney

In my mind, how big an expectation any given hourly rate is, depends A LOT on the term/amount of work.

Is it: 
- a one-time short gig of a few hours
- ongoing occasional gigs
- ongoing part-time, XYZ hrs/wk
- a salaried or full-time position
?

KP Mawhood

How does a person define their own value for these different terms /amount of work?

Johannes Neumeier

Need or greed.

Lila Symons

Marc Foley said:

I worked at DaMa from 2011–2015 and had a great time. I was 23 and yes the salary may seem low to US folks but it was actually better than most agencies and startups in London. I was hired as a junior designer and the pay was at least £10k higher than my friends who started as junior graphic designers at top agencies. I don't know how their bonuses rack up these days but for some years, the bonus was around a quarter of my salary.

DaMa's business model is closer to an agency than a tech company. They do have a small library of fonts and IP but they generate most of their revenue from drawing fonts for bluechips. Comparing DaMa to agencies rather than tech companies makes more sense imo.

London is a strange place for salaries. We do not see Bay Area pay unless you're working in banking, hedge funds, private equity or specific areas of law such as m&a. Ok we have some tech giants but they still don't pay as much as the bay. An average salary for a  doctor in London is £54,354 (a shambles I know) which should give us some context.

I look back at my time at DaMa quite fondly. If you're new to the industry, young and hungry, perhaps go for it. You will learn how to do this craft properly. There is a night and day difference between folks who have worked for a foundry which gets top tier clients. Drawing letters is 20% of the work, the rest which isn't taught at school is what you learn here. I'd also like to point out that I don't have a masters degree and was hired pretty much straight out of my undergrad degree.

The living in London part may be difficult. Now in my thirties I don't think I could do it. However, when I was 23-26, I had a great time. The club and music scene was world class. Every weekday something interesting was happening so you're never bored. Don't waste your youth in boring places!

The is borderline derailing, but in case any young folks are reading this:

As someone who moved to a smaller city in the United States from NYC for an Entry-Level Type Design job 10 years ago, I would pretty much say to anybody who is considering making a career change mid-level, or thinking about going to work at a foundry as a salaried employee to ask as many questions as you can about the benefits and what you can/can't do outside your employment with the foundry.

This is so you can decide if financially you can take a lower salary to work in an industry that interests you.

Some people are willing to freelance outside work to make extra money, where some people just want one job. If you want just one job, that's totally okay!

Not all foundries have good benefits, but a foundry might operate in a way where it might be a long-term incentive to work there for a few years.

Here's some thing to ask, or think about before taking a salaried job at a foundry, or a company where you will be working as a type designer:

1. Does the foundry allow employees to freelance as a type designer on the side?
2. Are employees of said foundry forced to sign non-competes to work for them (non-competes are different than NDAs)? Employers can purposely keep wages and raises low so you are forced to stay longer than you can like because you simply can't afford to leave, or can't afford to not work for a period of time.
3. Does the foundry give employees royalties if a font they worked on is being sold for a license through the foundry? I'm not sure if this is a thing at foundries anymore, but if it is, you might end up making more money long-term if the projects you work on are successful in retail, or if you get to release your own fonts through their foundry, you get royalities.
4. Does the foundry give employees annual raises, offer profit sharing, or other additional merit increases/incentives? Like the royalties, if the foundry has a good years, do employees get financially rewarded as well? I might anger a few foundry owners, but a lot of them should be compensating salaried employees, or giving them some sort of equity in the company after so many years of service (especially if they consider selling their foundry in the future).
5. Does the foundry reimburse employees for education, and conference travel? If you work remotely, will they cover office/studio expenses?
6. How much Paid Time Off/Vacation are you getting annually?

k.l.

Derailing? To the contrary. Spot on!

Dave Crossland

Does the foundry give employees royalties if a font they worked on is being sold for a license through the foundry?

I always found it extremely rich when foundry heads complain about libre font commissions being a bad deal, since libre fonts are paid 100% as labour costs and 0% royalty residuals, when those people themselves do not fairly share the royalties with the actual type designers who make their retail fonts. 

Equity is also important.