Hello,
For those of you who are making a living (or any significant source of income) making fonts, would you recommend it to anyone who seems to like it? I ask this because I kind of want to be a type designer when I am an adult (I'm a teenager, asking this because of college advising). If so, why? If not, also why?
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Hoefler bowing out was the tipping point for me. He saw it coming, and he tweeted about it intensely for a while.
Type design is a tough industry to make a living; there aren’t a lot of studios hiring (as most of us either work alone or with a very small team). If you go it alone, it’s tricky to establish yourself in the marketplace (I think all of us are always working at this).
If I were starting over, I think I’d still study graphic design, spend more time working as a designer (to find my niche, develop my eye, and make contacts in the industry), take classes like Type@Cooper —or learn type by myself at night—and then transition to type design.
Again, some kids have rich parents and money to fall back on, in which case go nuts.
Here’s another way to look at it: while type livelihoods have gotten harder to achieve, type design output itself has gotten easier. Tools are a hundred times more powerful today. My favorite recent font is Elstob, a multi-axis variable font with unprecedented features, given away free of charge by retired professor Peter Baker, who has posted here in the past. Calls himself an “amateur” type designer and produces THAT. So, yes, by all means, design new fonts. Digitize old ones. (I’ve got one in mind myself.) Expand existing ones (where the license allows.) Produce the output, buy the tools to help you do it, but don’t bank on the output being your livelihood. Certainly don’t borrow money to study it for four years. (I notice you appear to live in the fantastic state of Texas, Typofactory. My advice about studying is in the context of American higher education specifically.)
I make a perfectly good living doing font production and font forensics. But I have been very fortunate.
In my opinion, the humanities will be more resistant to incursion by AI (or whatever the latest round of “tech” will be) than STEM.
Of course, one does require some proficiency with digital media, but a human being who is able to draw, or even perform calligraphy, in tactile media, will be something special in a world run by robots.
However, the real question is: are you fascinated by the shape of letters, by typography, by the phenomenon of reading text? Lucky indeed is the person whose passion coincides with their career.
My own part-time foundry I would still call "fledgling." It would likely be bigger and more profitable if it were my full-time occupation, but so far there hasn't been a single quarter of sales that didn't provoke conscious gratefulness for my more reliable day job.
There are successful type designers with their own foundries encouraging people to likewise follow that dream. The spirit of that encouragement is uplifting, but I wonder it's singularly bad advice in actuality, given the numbers, the reliance on luck, and the seeming necessities of building a library and exercising patience. And that's not even mentioning the trajectory issues of AI, distributor consolidation, and devaluation of the product.
As John mentioned, the costs to get in the business are indeed minuscule, historically speaking (one piece of reasonably affordable software and you're in business). But it now feels like for retail fonts you need a largish library and ongoing marketing efforts to even get into position to maybe get that lucky strike. So barrier-to-entry is small, but barrier-to-success might require more capital and time (and time is money) than before, which is disheartening. (Of course, it's also Economics 101 that lowering friction for suppliers will tend to increase competition and drive prices and revenues lower.)
It's a good piece of this trade to have out in the open, so I'm glad to see this thread.
It should be said, my perspective is coming from foundry proprietorship and emphasis on retail, and there are other ways to be a professional type designer, some of which have been mentioned upthread.
If, becoming an adult, you still have the fascination he describes, follow your passion, if not professionnaly, as a hobby.
And with the wonderful tools available, create, create, invent, be original, which is very rewarding (but time consuming!)
And it was never easier to ask for advice on the web and to reach the biggest names in any industry. Common people are able to communicate with billionaires and royalty! There are many people in many professions because there are more people overall. Many used to have to do menial jobs but technology has now helped them get out of poverty. I believe we will be able to live to a day when poverty goes the way of slavery. This has driven prices down in some segments of some professions. But, when you compare the work of a seasoned professional with that of a hobbyist that used to do menial work - no, it often doesn't hit the mark. And I often had to couch younger colleagues in my office job, that are so brittle that they take every advice that was meant to help them as a personal insult and end up leaving the company. This is no way to do business... in the end, I have to call up people that I've known for decades and the professionals do the work that was supposed to be done by interns. But when was this not the case? If the intern doesn't cut the mustard, he or she will have to get a lower-level job to pay the bills, simple as that. So there will always be work for professionals. AI has taken the jobs of less skilled workers, but if you zoom in on the details of generated art, you would cry. Look at these flowers and tell me, do they resemble anything found in nature? Is there any visual hierarchy in the ovals and lines of the image? I use hand tracing of complex images as a pause between actual projects so I can let my mind run on autopilot for some time. (This works for me). But I couldn't imagine printing a vector of this and going to a concert with the design on a t-shirt. It is utter garbage to me, on every level - colors, shapes, theme, you name it. It's enough to look only at the lack of symmetry - you need and actual artist to redraw that. If somebody asks me to vectorize this for them, I might even reject the offer, no matter the price.
My income for much of my time in the industry has come from custom commission work, and more recently from distribution license fees on some existing fonts. I have never made much money from retail licensing, but then I also have not devoted much time to creating fonts for retail distribution or on marketing.
When Ross and I started Tiro in the mid-1990s. I had the sense that I knew almost everyone involved in the type business in North America and Europe. Now, I don’ t even know most of the foundries, let alone the individuals who run them, and the sheer quantity of new typefaces being created and published is more than anyone can reasonably keep track of. Every week, I see new fonts being announced on Twitter—and then they are gone. I hope some of them do well commercially; I hope the people who make them are making a decent return for their creativity and time. I do worry, though, that there may be too many new fonts being made, beyond the needs of paying users, and that many of them are doomed to see little use or earn more than beer money for their creators.
If someone is serious about entering the type design field, my advice would be to learn technical and production skills to complement their design skills. Despite the efforts of some font tool makers to try to make type design and font creation easy, fonts remain complex technical products, and the people who have a solid understanding of the OpenType font format, who know how to work with more than one tool, and who have some programming understanding (not necessarily actual coding skills, although that is also a specific benefit) will find more diverse ways to earn money.
If you are only interested in type design and none of the other aspects of running a foundry, don’t try to run a foundry. I expect the results to be similar to people replying here who release type on their own, but don’t want to actively run a foundry. Running a foundry would include marketing, business, and usually also customer support activities as everyday tasks.
As someone who is running a foundry while also designing a little bit of type, but is nowhere near a full-time type designer: if you want to run a foundry, run a foundry! It’s a lot of fun and I find it really rewarding. Being able to provide a platform for other designers, and promoting their work, is something that I care about and that is really fun for me. If you don’t want to do all the things involved in that, find your niche in type design and if you’re decent at what you do, you’ll most likely be able to earn a living.
This can for example mean that you release type through one or more foundries who engage in these above activities, or that you become a technical specialist, or that you freelance for other designers and take over production work, mastering, or other such activities for their releases.
But if you do want to take an educational path to type design, you’ll study graphic design first, anyway. And you have a great head start if you try to design typefaces at your age already. If that’s something you want to do right now, do it! No need to consider your entire career when picking hobbies as a teenager, though.
The landscape of type design is continuously evolving, with demand for new fonts diminishing but the significance of typographic expertise remains unwavering. In retrospect, the period between 1995 and 2015 appears to have been a peculiar era for full-time typeface designers, where it was possible to be a full-time typeface designer while not having a career as a typographer or graphic designer.
My personal experience reflects this change. A vast majority of my font income is derived from typefaces I created prior to 2010. Although some of these works have been expanded and rebuilt, barring a single release in 2016, I could arguably categorize my font releases in the past decade more as a passion project (hobby) than a substantial income source.
Considering the advent of innovative design tools, the field is evolving towards valuing a solid foundation in art and design history, perhaps even more than technical acumen. The dynamic nature of type design as a career demands adaptability and a continuous learning mindset. That’s something young people are naturally better than old people at. Young people will use these tools to extend their reach while us old folks will avoid them for assorted reasons.
While the days of thriving purely as a typeface designer may be numbered, a broader understanding of typography and its application in design, coupled with a rich knowledge of art and design history, could pave the way for exciting opportunities in the future. So, go for it!
Wow, bleak indeed! Listen, @Typofactory, it's important to reiterate what someone mentioned earlier: a career in type design can take various forms.
Most of the previous commenters run their own studios. Owning a business is often more challenging than being employed in any industry. It entails a lot of responsibility and likely longer hours, but it obviously grants greater autonomy. So here's a different perspective: I have always been an employee throughout my professional life. It suits my personality; the uncertainty of income (from retail or custom work) would cause me anxiety. Being responsible for others' livelihoods amplifies that anxiety even more. Doing my own thing was never in the cards for me.
Now, there aren't many full-time positions available. And when they do arise, they are often with companies that the rest of the industry looks down upon. This situation isn't unique to the type industry though. If, for example, you wanted to be a forklift driver, you'd be more likely to find a job at Amazon or Walmart than at a neon sign graveyard.
I know many people who are passionate about creating fonts but not about marketing them. They find it works for them to work for others. Some have chosen to inspire a new generation of designers by teaching about type. Others consult. Others again thrive when they have the autonomy to select their projects and don’t care if they have to do their own accounting and customer support on the side. And there are some of us who engage in a combination of all of the above. Your approach will depend on your personal values.
What I’m trying to say is that I don't want you to be discouraged if you have a passion for becoming a type designer. If you can find your footing, it can be an absolute dream.
All that said, maybe the best thing I think I’ve seen on this thread is to not let your long-term career planning inhibit your interest in type design as a hobby. Type design is beautiful and full of discovery and (usually) fun. It’s a bit like a video game, but with more tangible outcomes. It’s great to have a hobby that engages your mind on multiple fronts, and type design definitely does that! And, as worrisome as automation can be if you think too far ahead and put too much faith in it becoming ever more sentient… automation is really helpful for many parts of type design today. The tools we now have enable really amazing type projects, and (arguably) higher-quality work than ever before, especially from those of us who aren’t Bram de Does.
Best of luck to you in whatever field you pursue, and have fun!
As interested as I was in type design when I started out (mid-90s, same as John), I quickly found that there was a pervasive need for production expertise. Although the technical landscape for fonts has changed quite a lot since then, there is still, and will always be, emerging technologies that are confusing to people. Make yourself an expert in some part of it and you’ll have a better chance of finding reliable income.
As it happened, my type career has also brought me together with some very good type designers — so although I’ve not done a lot of type design in the last 20 years, I’ve absorbed a lot and am still comfortable and confident in my skills when I do it. (Keeping up with the technical side is far more challenging to me.)
However, one thing I will say is, that while I would not recommend a general graphic design degree, I think the one-year master’s programs from Reading and KABK are awesome. If they had been around early enough that I could have learned about them and done one of those, I think I would have been well-served by it. (That said, my RIT education was also pretty handy in a bunch of ways.)
Education is not just about what you learn in the coursework, but about the connections you make with both students and teachers.
With the digitization of the graphic arts c.1990, I started to make some money off font licence sales, as a side gig to my career as an art director.
Eventually I amassed enough fonts, and the market expanded enough, that I was able to do font making full time (including custom for-fee work). The phenomenon was identified in 2004 by Wired’s Chris Anderson as “The Long Tail”.
My point: there is a time and a place for everything, at the intersection of technology, the marketplace, and one’s talents, education and inclination, and if I had been born a little later, I might have considered porting my art & design skills into making apps for passive income, and, later again, NFTs, or today, something to do with AI.
If you can find some way to combine AI with making fonts, as Pablo has probed (to use McLuhan’s term) here, that might be promising.