How do you make a living as an independent type designer?

Kasper Pyndt

Hello fellow type designers,

The headline says it all. Type design practices come in many shapes and sizes; Some of the designers I've talked to are working almost solely on custom type while others earn their $ from retail sales, lettering and other things. 

I'm writing this thread as I'm still relatively new in the industry and I'm curious to learn how you – or the ones of you with more experience than myself – found your path in type design, making a steady income doing something that you're passionate about. 

I haven't yet found the solution (if such a thing even exists), but have managed to get by since starting my company in 2018 working independently primarily as a type designer (80% type and 20% graphic design). I've found that branching out has been necessary for me, since I haven't yet been able to earn enough from just custom type and retail license sales. So I've been doing a bit of teaching and freelancing for agencies and foundries in addition to selling retail licenses and the occasional custom typeface.

Happy to receive any insights on this fairly lofty topic. How'd you go about running a type design practice anno 2024?  

Kasper

Vasil Stanev

I have other income streams beside graphic design, like MyFonts revenue, and I earn a westerner's salary in a country with a cheap standard of living, i.e. I'm an expat in the capital of my own home country of Bulgaria. It's pretty sweet.
Most of my colleagues have to find odd jobs though, like baristas , barmaids, and checkout clerks. It's VERY odd running into a person that you know has considerable skill yet has to sell you some hamburger or beer. Usually they bounce back in a year or two and start making good coin again. 
I know quite a number of expats from the western part of the EU and from the US, Cannada that were able to buy a home somewhere in the countryside here for peanuts. About $15k of additional repairs and one can live like in pre-industrial England, grow one's own food, etc. But it's very hard to find medical care there when one advnaces in years. That's why I plan to sell my home and move to a developed country when I hit retirement age. I'm eyeing the Midwest in the US.

Craig Eliason

This thread from last year had some insights.
(Not intending to cut off any new ones!) 

John Hudson

I was about to start typing a response, but thanks to Craig’s intervention I don’t need to because it would be almost word-for-word what I wrote in that other thread.

The only thing I would add is a recommendation to diversify your streams of income and not to be overly reliant upon one, even if it seems immediately lucrative and most promising. I used to advise people to seek out the position in the type business that most suited their temperment and satisfied their interests, but now I think it is becoming essential to be good at multiple things and to generate multiple kinds of work.

Vasil Stanev

I think two things:
- the most successful mass products are the ones that tap into people's narcissism. Whatever helps people to show off to the world how fantastic they and what they care about is - offspring, hobbies, shape of the body, substances that go into their mouths - this thing is golden. Find a way/app to marry that to type design.
- the current global economy is structured in such a way that every ten years or so there is a bust. During greedy bull markets, i.e. growing of the bubble, things are going great, people get engaged, have kids, take out loans, spend. Then the bubble bursts due to some crisis, man-made or not. I can recall three major bust in just a quarter of a century - the Covid19 lockdown, before that the crisis of 2008, and before that the dotcom crash. Other forumites can no doubt recall more. No use cursing the system. Better be prepared for what is bound to happen around 2030, 2040, 20...

Dave Crossland

I think you answered your own question in your first paragraph Perhaps you already know all the following, but perhaps only subliminally. And you can take it all with a pinch of salt, I am not running a type design shop – in some ways the inverse, I buy type, I don't sell it. But I get into this conversation quite a lot, so here's what I tell people.

There really are, essentially, only those two business models for type designers:

(A) "custom" type: developing type on commission, for organizations (or, occasionally, persons) for some purpose that they had already conceived, or,

(B), "retail" type: developing type on speculation, for marketplaces. 

Those form the basis of the two solutions; such a thing does exists, in the form of effective sales and marketing to organizations, and it also exists in the form of a series of hits in retail.

Those are self reinforcing, more-so for the latter. As you've found, there's a large amount of luck involved, deal flow and a sense of market timing both ebb and flow, and as each type designer rolls their dice they find some balance between the two. (I think its exceedingly rare that a type designer maintains a 100:0 or 0:100 % ratio in the 21st century.) And seconding what John Hudson has said above about temperament, the balance that makes most sense for you is likely determined by your own proclivities; and that, per my longer post in that other thread, requires the bedrock of being an educated person: know thyself.

Vasil Stanev is right that the global macroeconomic structure is the waves upon which type designers (and really their customers, custom or retail) surf, but since branding and marketing activities are counter-cyclical (given they have liquidity to do so, firms try to counter the macro trends by increasing their marketing spending), I think type isn't as tightly bound to the weather as other endeavors. 

As you tagged your post, making a living as a type designer is all about applying lessons in running a "hashtag small business" to type, and those lessons are offered all over the place. The most important business advice in a sentence is: Make things people want. You have to put first thing first: If you can't develop type that people want, you won't have any customers, custom or retail.

Only knowing about you and your work from your post above, it sounds like you have competency in making type, but not mastery - no hits - and also not yet working the custom type marketplace to close large-ticket sales with organizations. (You said you're new, and so that is not unexpected, I'm not trying to make any kind of diss here )

So, to take your type business to the next level, I think you can either focus on making type that people want more - typefaces that are more desirable - and let the business stuff follow; or, you can focus on making type that people want more - better sales and marketing, and other hashtag small business stuff.

(As an aside: My 'two ways to go' thesis here is inspired by the point made by Scott McCloud with Chapter 7 of Understanding Comics – which, if anyone reading this has not read the whole book, it is an absolute must – obtain a copy without delay  To spoil it, what I took away from Scott was that, once people who make comics have competency, then to gain mastery, they must choose between comics as an art form, where its purpose is self referential, or comics as a tool, to convey ideas with the unique powers of the medium. The book title is itself a reference to Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media, which I also recommend highly to establish a useful perspective on how our dynamic industrial society really functions.)

"Lifestyle" businesses have never been easier to start than any other time in history, thanks to the ad colossus at the heart of each social media platform; James Edmondson of Oh No Type Co made a strong keynote at Typecon 2023 pointing out how under-utilized social video media is in the type industry. For the custom type side, someone else will probably do an equally epic keynote at some type conference in the future about how high-ticket sales does not require divine intervention, it is just another skill that can be learned.

It has also never been easier to study type and take your craft to the next level, than at any other time in history. There are several online courses offering full ride scholarships and I bet many other (who don't advertise it) would be willing to entertain a chat about exchanging elbow grease with course admin for attendance. There are now many places offering Masters level courses and several offering Doctorates. The front page of this forum has 30 threads, and I just counted 5 of them being about resources to learn this thing. And the classic personal apprenticeship never gets old; while you said you're already freelancing for agencies and foundries, I guess you can challenge yourself to obtain work under other masters, maybe across an ocean or two.

I hear "libre fonts have hurt me" plenty, but I hear it less these days. I always struggle to reconcile that with witnessing a large boom in type design over the last 20 years while I've been watching – it seems to me there are more people, in more places, making money from making type, than ever before, and I expect the trend to continue. I was at Typographics 2024 last week, and one of the people I consider an absolute top master of the field told me that, while their foundry's business is growing steady, many colleagues are facing trouble with continuing to produce the kind of fonts that were already being commonly produced 20, even 30, years ago - small Latin glyph sets, small design spaces. But I see much future for type designers, even with A.I. generating type, and I'm wary of underlying assumptions of scarcity, that I believe preclude perceiving fresh opportunity.

So my final advice, if your business is small, is to think big: Be more ambitious. Globally ambitious. 

Good luck

Typedesigner

A successful type design business also includes the right choice of company name and domain name. Many type designers have to think about the right name and the right domain for the foundry. They are often registered too long, too complicated or require too much explanation. KISS is a universal recommendation for the name of a foundry and can also be applied to domains. It stands for "keep it short and simple". A foundry and the resulting domain should be memorable. Keywords that make sense are generally more memorable. Ideally, you can name the domain of a foundry without explaining it and the customer will still remember it a month later. This is the case with typedesign.org or typography.net, but not with johndoegreatfoundry.com.

The question of whether a fantasy name is better than a generic term cannot be decided at this point. However, if there is no marketing budget available, an invented name is worse. Another aspect is that almost all coveted generic domain names are already registered.

Dave Crossland

@Typedesigner I'm not sure an 'invented' name is bad... What does "klim" mean? Purple cow?

Kasper, a few other suggestions for further reading

* Nick Shinn (of Shinn Type, near Toronto Canada) just posted an excellent "Money for Fonts: How I made a career designing typefaces" PDF that he shared over in the  https://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/66407/#Comment_66407

* Joana Correa (of Nova Type Foundry, in Porto Portugal) made a very nice presentation about her experience undertaking an MBA to advance her foundry business at Typographics 2024 TypeLab. I think the video is online although I don't have it handy.

* On the topic of "mastery" generally, a very nice short book on this I've enjoyed is Mastery by George Leonard.

Typedesigner

@Dave Crossland Most customers searching for fonts or type design enter these keywords into Google. That's why it's optimal to have generic domains like typedesign.org.

For example, fonts.com is short and concise, it is a descriptive term, domain is not prone to typos, domain has a high internet affinity and is perfect for commercial use. This is why Monotype marketed its fonts through fonts.com for decades.

It is not easy to make a 'invented' name known and optimised for SEO. This requires a large advertising and marketing budget, which most foundries hardly have at their disposal. An 'invented' name is therefore more appropriate for medium sized companies or large corporations. 

In addition, generic domains such as typography.com, typography.net, fonts.com, typedesign.org, etc. are so-called intellectual property that have a certain market value.
 

Dave Crossland

@Typedesigner that seems very old school, to me. I'm not how useful it is to recommend generic domains, given you've said they are already all registered. 

Typedesigner

@Dave Crossland Each foundry can decide for itself whether it wants to appear under a generic name or an "invented" name. Sometimes good generic domains also become available. In general, it can be said that short domain names are better, such as tdc.org.

There are many free generic keywords under new domain extensions (new TLDs). 

John Hudson

On the subject of invented vs generic names and short domains: I regularly receive inquiries about purchasing tiro.com, usually from European tyre companies, and occasionally from Iberian gun clubs.

Typedesigner

@John Hudson tiro.com is a great domain name because it is short and generic and the .com domain extension is very popular.

James Hultquist-Todd

Honestly, I don’t think anyone cares what your type foundry is called. They just want the font they saw the cool designer/company/campaign using. I’d say it’s more important to focus on making that one typeface that’ll resonate with your customers/users/audience. Everyone I know who makes 100% of their living from type design (myself included), has at least one typeface that really hit the mark with their audience and carries the weight of the foundry. The rest of the releases do fine, but there is usually one standout.

Come to think of it, I’d rather have an unusual name than something common; there are so many foundries out there, the last thing you want to do is have a name that could be easily confused for some else’s.

SEO, social media, etc. are all a waste of time and money. Make friends with designers and art directors in real life.

John Hudson

tiro.com is only a generic domain name for tyres or shooting—depending on language. That was my main point: ‘generic’ names are actually localised names.

Nick Shinn

Hanging out my shinngle:

I named my foundry after myself, for several reasons.

Firstly, I couldn’t think up a fancy name that wasn’t already taken.

Secondly, Hoefler & Frere-Jones seemed to be doing alright. Caslon was also a good precedent.

Thirdly, I intended to publish only my own designs.

Fourthly, I had paid my dues in the advertising business, where agencies were usually named after the principal(s), all very professional, and it was nice to see creatives atop the masthead.

Mark Simonson

I also use my own name for my business, primarily so that people identify my work with a human being, not some faceless company. I'm also always careful to write on my site in the first person (e.g., "I first got the idea for this typeface..." instead of "Mark first got the idea for this typeface...").

I did use a "faceless" name in the late eighties and nineties when I was doing freelancing on the side—Blue Sky Graphics. But I had a change of mind when I quit my day job and started my own company.

James Montalbano

I named my business Terminal Design 30 years ago. Being located on the "Terminal Moraine" in Brooklyn I thought I was being clever. I still laugh when I see search results that bring one to companies doing designs for shipping terminals.

Kasper Pyndt

@Dave Crossland Thanks a lot for the very generous input. I think your brief assessment of where I am currently in my career is fairly on point. I've had a few large-ticket custom type commissions, but always through branding agencies who have acquired the client in the first place. I'm not sure if it's feasible for an independent type designer such as myself to acquire commissions directly without a visual identity being sold on by an agency beforehand. That would surely be a rarity, right? 

I've worked around 6 years doing mostly type — and I've managed — but I'm also finding that I have to do a lot of legwork to gain commissions for bespoke typefaces. Some, if not most, of that legwork includes connecting with agencies who like my work and want to hire me on as a freelancer.

In regards to making retail fonts that people want to use: I'm working on it

You mention macroeconomic influences and to that I'll respond that the ebbs and flows have felt pretty drastic to me in terms of when people are in the market for custom type. The last two years have in my experience been much more difficult than the years prior (probably due to high inflation) which has led me to focus more on retail, teaching and small-time freelancing (designing wordmarks, small display-type things, font engineering for foundries, etc).

I guess being "agile" (just to use the most worn-out cliché ever) is pretty crucial in this business. 

Thierry Blancpain

Just about the foundry naming: Grilli Type is doing fine, and I’m still amazed at our weird name 15 years into our journey. No offense intended, but I would strongly recommend to ignore that advice.

Kasper Pyndt

Just for the sake of clarity I've renamed the thread to "how do you make a living as an independent type designer" (as opposed to someone being full-time employed at a foundry/agency or someone running a company with employees). 

Ermin Međedović

As a one-man band, I named Lettermin by merging ‘Letter’ and my name. Initially, I was a bit worried that David Letterman’s lawyers might contact me, but so far they haven’t.

Dave Crossland

I agree with James' point about effectively networking, to the point of making genuine friendships, with people who will become your biggest customers and word of mouth affiliate marketers; not only for that immediate first order benefit, but the significant second order benefits of learning much more from them about their needs and wants, problems and desires, than you can from cold analysis alone.

If how to establish professional relationships cold is a mystery, I highly recommend https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/advice/agre-networking-on-the-network-20050814.html - I came across this book length webpage around age 16 and it had a huge impact on the shape of my work life; something that often arrests attention at talks I've given to high schoolers is that my sisters and I have never submitted a job application, we've only ever found opportunities through our networks. That's not too say school and college grades and certificates are completely worthless, but they aren't as important as their administrators make out. The ideal situation is to have both credentials and competency. 

Also, I think there's a connection in what Mark says about digital media forming "long tail" powerlaw patterns in big marketplaces, and what James and I are saying about the powerlaw distribution within a foundry catalogue. Even a series of hits will have one noticably ahead of the others; Roboto towers over the other 3. It's fractal, I suppose.

Kasper Pyndt

@Dave Crossland

I think you're making an important point related to building networks and client bases; Not "applying for jobs", but making genuine connections, figuring out mutually beneficial ways to utilise each other in a professional partnership... this, to me, seems crucial for independent type designers for whom clients are not "coming back" as much as they are for graphic designers where clients may be coming back every year in need of a website-refresh or a new version of their annual report, catalogue, etc.

I've found that I, in the function of type designer, also need to do quite a lot of "educating" to make prospecting clients aware of what I can offer them. Some may think that type design is always a hugely time-consuming and costly affair and haven't yet realised that type design can literally be optimising a custom wordmark or modifying an open-source font. But still – despite these efforts of reaching out and "educating" – most of the work I've been getting is from people I know from school. Or from someone who knows someone who knows me. 

Thanks for the link. I'm gonna give it a read! 

Dave Crossland

Yep. One of the top things, maybe the top thing, on offer from a school, secondary or postgraduate, is the network - not the certificate.

The best book I've seen on educating clients is https://abookapart.com/products/design-is-a-job and in a roundabout way Google Fonts Knowledge exists for this reason - no one uses things they don't understand, so offering next generation variable fonts for high end typography leads to offering open educational resources, so anyone interested in what text typography is and how to do it can do so. The aspiration is that anyone can gather enough wood to want to cook with gas. It's not all there yet but let's see

It's maybe a different thread, but I'm curious about the details you've educated your clients with, and if GFK is useful in that context too

Miles Newlyn

A key part of making a living as an independent type designer is pricing your work so that you can live the life you want. Most designers undervalue their work and take little interest in economics. Many of us sign deals with resellers in which we have no control over the price of our fonts, or deals that sound reasonable now but which will be worth much less in a few years because of inflation. Take great care in valuing the products of your labour, there is a world out there intent on depriving you of its rewards.

Although it's focussed on web design, Pricing Design is a good general primer.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28511400-pricing-design