So, I wrote an article about some changes in the font biz over the past decade or more: so.
https://www.commarts.com/columns/fontocalypse-now(the print article has a sidebar, which is why there is this random extra bit after the main article in the online version.)
Lots of people had stuff to say and I had actually a bunch of cool quotes and stuff, most of which got axed for lack of space. I killed some earlier on trying to make things fit, and then my editor had various things she wanted expanded on, which was fine, but more things had to go.
@Bruno Maag @JoyceKettererand
@Dave Crossland were all very helpful and had important perspectives, which you might see only slight bits of.
Comments
I will say that I think license terms are a real minefield, whether it is “free” fonts or not!
It would be great to have a zoom conference between foundries and independent designers to talk and share info about market issues, experience nad good practices.
It was super late at night, I was wrapping up a round of revisions from the editor, and I had the title idea. So the most you can blame the editor for is “not changing it.”
The editor was Esther Oh, and she was quite hands-on and made a lot of suggestions and asked for a lot of additions and changes—in a good way, for sure.
The biggest editing challenge was with word count limit issues, which are of course not her fault, just a consequence of the physical print format. But cutting for length did sometimes feel a bit brutal. I did that more than she did, though.
The reason I say that most of my issue is with the title is that I don't think what we're experiencing is an apocalypse. I think it's a big shift on the order of other big shifts fonts have experienced (away from metal; becoming software). These things are always "adapt or die" situations... when it's done the industry will look very different but I think it will still be here.
I also think it's a bit lazy to focus so much on free fonts. Free fonts are not new. it's easy to vilify free fonts when a lot of them are coming from google but free fonts aren't really changing the industry - partly cause they aren't new.
From my perspective, most of the shift is happening in the revenue model because of the combined forces of web fonts (self hosting being the main push) and adobe's hosting replacing desktop use. For many of us, these forces are largely good. I don't expect that Darden Studio is going anywhere any time soon.