| The article suggests that tech companies believe brand is important, and therefore invest in building custom typefaces to save on licensing fees. That doesn't really hold up. The cost of developing a custom typeface can easily run from hundreds of thousands into millions of dollars. It can take a huge amount of time and energy from within the company to commission and direct a large creative project. Typeface licensing costs are a very small proportion of what most companies will spend on brand marketing. And saving money on a small line-item isn't exactly a recipe for getting promoted. Announcing that your shiny new typeface will save the company lots of money is, more likely, a post-purchase rationalisation that helps make everyone feel good about the investment. If the driver was primarily to reduce licensing costs, there are some great alternatives: 1. Use one of the many terrific free and open source typefaces that will cover all the languages and use cases you really need (like Noto or Open Sans). Or even better, system fonts. Jeremiah Shoaf has a terrific curated list here: https://www.typewolf.com/google-fonts 2. Threaten to use a free alternative and then negotiate a better deal on licensing 3. Go ahead and use your favourite typeface without declaring the full usage so it is unlicensed or under-licensed. This saves a lot of money and is actually pretty common. In the past I've interviewed designers and creative teams about how they choose and decide to license typefaces. They talk about things like: * wanting to create exactly the right aesthetic for their brand (i.e. I can only be satisfied by something that doesn't yet exist) * finding usage-based licensing complex as it creates non-financial costs in terms of understanding, tracking and justifying the licensing costs. That all gets much easier if you own the typeface. * reducing the risk of inadvertent copyright infringement and subsequent reputational damage * feeling in control by owning the IP (and therefore not dependent on any third party in future) |
No-one's arguing the up front investment in creating the font, but instead focusing on the "rent-seeking behaviour" that sees the recurring costs come in anywhere up to $1M a year. Some foundries charge you per pageview and per mobile app developer. There is a company/audience size at which keeping track of pageviews and seat count and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars or perhaps millions per year is significantly more trouble than the initial hurt of commissioning a typeface. At the end of the exercise you can wrap it up as a marketing or branding opportunity and generate a few hundred thousand pageviews and call it a day.