Explanation of the Type Industry.

Typofactory

Hello,

Recently, I have seen a lot news about the type industry. I am not a professional, so I admit a don't know as much as I would like. Could someone please explain the type industry in its (almost) whole? This might be an unrealistic ask, but I feel as though the industry is a very confusing place and I just want a foray. You don't have to be super-detailed, just enough for me to know the big happenings. Thanks to anyone who responds.

Scott-Martin Kosofsky

The type industry—as an industry—is one in which the supply is far greater than the demand. It became this way during the nearly four decades after the democratization of type-making technology in the late 1980s and, not long after, the adoption of universal font formats that are operable across the platforms on which fonts are used.

It should be noted that the industry includes a considerable number of highly skilled people who continue to do very fine and valuable work, despite the overpopulation of producers and product—and the growing availability of free fonts. Their number continues to grow as the métier of type design has become an academic course of study, which yearly graduates more people into the field.

That's the most general view of the "industry" I can think of. Others will have much more to say.

Mark Simonson

I would say it is mainly comprised of producers (type designers and foundries, who design and produce the fonts) and distributors (e.g., Monotype, Adobe, ILT, Fontspring, etc.). There is some overlap. Some distributors also produce fonts (Monotype, Adobe) some do not (Fontspring, Creative Market, ILT, etc.). Some foundries also distribute directly to customers or only do distribution themselves, not through third party distributors. In many cases, producers work directly with customers on bespoke fonts. I would even include the free/open source font community (both producers and distributors, such as Google Fonts and DaFont) as a part of all this.

I would also include the software developers who create font editors and other font production tools and standards to be part of the "type industry."

James Puckett

The type industry is:

• Monotype: a company that gobbled up some smaller but important companies, giving it ownership of thousands of old font trademarks, copyrights, and source files. Monotype is also the largest distributor of fonts by “independent” type designers who sell their fonts primarily through MyFonts.com. Monotype has a new font subscription service, new as in not the first time they’re tried it. Monotype is owned by a private equity fund that is trying to flip the company for what seems like an incredible amount of money but it’s a private company so maybe it really is worth four billion dollars. Monotype goes back and forth on creating new, often custom, typefaces. A few years ago they laid off a bunch of great type designers when the market slowed down and they haven’t gone back into that business since things picked up again.
  
• Smaller distributors: Font Bros, I Love Typography, Creative Market (owns FontSpring), You Work For Them, and some others. They’re like MyFonts but smaller each with their own niche of customers.
  
• The Type Founders: some people with money buying up type foundries, probably building a company to sell later.
  
• Google: Google Fonts hosts libre fonts for free so that millions of web sites will use web fonts instead of static images that can’t be indexed by search engines.
  
• Adobe: Adobe Fonts is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud software and services ecosystem. Adobe subscribers get access to thousands of fonts that they can use within the CC applications without having to worry about licensing or convincing the clients to pay for fonts.
• Truly Independent Type Foundries: These are small companies like Frere-Jones Type, Commercial Type, Terminal Design, and Okay Type. They only sell direct. Many of the independent foundries get clients to pay for custom typefaces, keep the rights to the typeface, and then sell the type later.
  

Nadine Chahine

There are clients who need fonts. They get these via a few different ways:
1- they get something custom made 
2- they license something existing (paid or free)
3- they use fonts bundled with their software or OS

For part 1, they go straight to foundries or individual type designers.

For part 2, they can get the fonts either directly from the foundries or via distributors. This can happen online or offline, via one time payment or annual fees or subscription to full libraries.

Foundries: these are either individual designers with their own label, or a small sized company, or large (like Monotype), or a small unit that is part of a much bigger company (Google, Microsoft, Adobe). 

JoyceKetterer

@Typofactory Could you please provide links to recent "lot news about the type industry".  I've only seen a little and want to catch up

Mark Simonson

@James Puckett said:

• The Type Founders: some people with money buying up type foundries, probably building a company to sell later.

Yeah, that's not what they are doing. TTF is not a distributor, more like a meta-foundry. Promoting and developing the foundries they've acquired is their purpose, and in most cases, the designers from those foundries continue to be actively involved, but focused on type design rather than other aspects of running a foundry. They are building something for the long term.

John Hudson

I think the concern some people have with TTF is that there appears to be no structural protection against the owners opting to sell the company, e.g. to Monotype. Anyone familiar with the way in which ownership in the publishing or automotive industries became increasingly concentrated knows that this is a familiar pattern: companies start merging or buying up smaller players, and then themselves get acquired by a larger player. The only way to avoid this as a potential outcome is to make it structurally or legally prohibitive, which the people investing in a company are loath to do, because ultimately they may want to cash out and, if the price is right, they almost certainly will. ‘Building something for the long term’ does not in itself preclude selling that something.

Mark Simonson

Well, that's certainly not their aim, which @James Puckett was suggesting.

Typofactory

 Could you please provide links to recent "lot news about the type industry".  I've only seen a little and want to catch up

https://typedrawers.com/discussion/4872/sunsetting-fonts-com-etc#latest

https://typedrawers.com/discussion/4892/hggc-explores-4-billion-sale-of-typeface-firm-monotype#latest

https://typedrawers.com/discussion/4863/monotype-foundry-partners#latest
https://typedrawers.com/discussion/4865/myfonts-sales-reports#latest
https://typedrawers.com/discussion/4864/judge-rules-ai-generated-art-is-not-copyrightable#latest
https://typedrawers.com/discussion/4859/65-now-and-forever-font-bros#latest
https://typedrawers.com/discussion/4853/creative-market-a-new-era-of-font-creation#latest
https://typedrawers.com/discussion/4846/monotype-acquired-fontworks#latest