Fonts Gripe!!!

[DZineMonkey]

I can’t believe the price of fonts! I’m the sole designer for a small PR company setting up a design studio. Wanting to keep everything legal, but unsatisfied with the default range of fonts. I began looking into the purchase of a good font collection. For a collection of 3900 Linotype Fonts it costs $15,400. This is cheap when compared to the Font Factory’s ‘Font Font Collection’ which retails for $26,000. Sure these collections come with licences for 20 machines, but I only need a licence for one. I can’t help thinking that this is not just unreasonable but completely ridiculous. The application software cost less then 10% of this.
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Please, if anyone has any advice on other legal alternatives, I’d love to hear them.
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Cheers
DeZineMonkeyhttp://www.graphicdesignforum.com/DesktopModules/dotNetBB/emoticons/mad.gif

"Design is not an optional extra, it is an essential."

[EC]

legal alternatives? wtf?

I buy them one at a time, it's the cost of doing business. Deal with it. I don't condone 'legal alternatives' personally.

[DZineMonkey]

'legal alternatives'= being within the confines of the law! As opposed to 'illegal alternatives'(breaking the law).

Perhaps I've implied sarcasim where none was intended.

As for 'the cost of doing business' that's a fair comment and I'd be more than happy to pay the price if I needed 20 licences, but I don't. I stand by my comment that the money being asked for is 'completely ridiculous' to expect from a small business.

Cheers
DZineMonkey


"Design is not an optional extra, it is an essential."

[beanz]

Realistically you're never going to need all 3,600 of those fonts.

I believe the Adobe open type fonts do a liscence for single machines (don't quote me, i just seem to remember reading that somewhere!?!); their 2,000 odd fonts cost about $4,500 i think! ;) That's if open type would work be any good to you...

http://sighost.fuelie.org/accounts/beanz/beanz_17.jpg

http://dabeanz.deviantart.com

[Bear]

depending on the way you do your work, you will need those extra licenses. yes, you say you need them for only 1 machine, but you'll also need to provide them to every client that you use those fonts on.

C*** Designer

[EC]

DZineMonkey. Sorry I misunderstood! Welcome to the forum.

[PrintDriver]

Buy em as you need em. Fonts.com provides 5 licenses for about $25-35 per typeface. They also have typeface collections for more reasonable prices.

And the real funny thing...you can provide those fonts to 4 other people EXCEPT your printer unless they have their own license (most do).

But DO supply the fonts you use to your printer. You would not BELIEVE the headaches caused by mismatched fonts. We're finding that the same font from the same foundry but with a different creation date is making a difference in word wrap. SUCKS. Don't get me started....

PD is a grande format digital print dude. His advice/opinions may not apply to the 4color/offset/web world of printing

[jamodu]

Yeah PD, we used to find that happening too when I worked in Prepress. Sometimes the character mapping is different even though its the same font file from the same foundry. Special characters mysteriously turning into other ones in huge blocks of text can be a nightmare to spot and sort out!!

http://www.impact.me.uk/ebay/images/jamodustrap.jpg

[Allen Harkleroad]

What about Adobes Big font collection of PostScript fonts? I think it is a bit more resaonable or of course you can purchase them as needed from different sources. One think I do like about CorelDraw is they do provide a large number of fonts with the application. both TTF and PS fonts. Nice big book with samples too.

[Allen Harkleroad]

Adobe Font Folio is under 9 grand for 10 licenses and I think they have other license/seat options they have the OpenType and PS collections, something like 2200 fonts.

http://www.adobe.com/products/fontfolio/main.html

The complete, cross-platform type solution for creative professionals
The OpenType® edition of the Adobe® Font Folio™ is the keystone of any creative professional's toolkit. This collection of more than 2,200 typefaces from the Adobe Type Library in OpenType format offers a complete type solution for print, the Web, digital video, or electronic documents. The OpenType format gives designers true cross-platform compatibility, improved linguistic support, and enhanced typographic functionality.

Adobe Font Folio OpenType Edition "10-PACK"
NOTE:Includes special 10-computer license for small creative workgroups
CD-ROM Windows/Macintosh US$4,999.00

Adobe Font Folio 9.0
NOTE:Legacy version in PostScript Type 1 format; includes 20-computer license CD-ROM Windows/Macintosh US$8,999.00