5 ms·

Well, that's a bit like saying "the world's software developers, many of whom still use proprietary frameworks." Branding agencies use proprietary type families

Well, that's a bit like saying "the world's software developers, many of whom still use proprietary frameworks." Branding agencies use proprietary type families when they're the most appropriate for the job, just like developers use commercial software when it fits a need that the open source community hasn't filled to their liking. Open-source typography is flourishing, but that doesn't mean commercial typography is dead.

_greim_ 13y ago
> Open-source typography is flourishing, but that doesn't mean commercial typography is dead. Agreed, I just think the pendulum hasn't swung far enough on the open direction, because of the relative newness of the tech. In other words, it seems that branding agencies sometimes use proprietary type families out of habit and ignorance, not because they've evaluated the tradeoffs and made a careful choice.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  In other words, it seems that branding agencies sometimes use proprietary type families out of habit and ignorance, not because they've evaluated the tradeoffs and made a careful choice. I think their choice is more rational than you give credit for. While there are now quite a few good freely available fonts for use on your blog or small business site, there are still few, if any, open font families that offer the same breadth as good commercial offerings. If you're a large organisation, bringing in an agency to create overall branding guidelines that will apply to everything you produce from slideshows to printed brochures via web apps and business cards, it would be foolish of that agency to suggest typography that didn't offer enough range to be future-proof.
  - _greim_ 13y ago
    Perhaps. I can certainly appreciate that a brand designer may be worrying about a wide range of print and advertising media, and in that grand scheme of concerns the web isn't all that important.
  - doorhammer 13y ago
    My (anecdotal) experience has been that given a large enough organization, you're probably going to run into a lot of subsets of the organization that just don't know any better or aren't aware of the company branding strategy and guidelines. It's probably a reasonable bet to say that most of those groups won't be creating public facing content, but I've seen it happen often enough before. Not a broad study, but an interesting note. Basically, just that it's useful to remember that large organizations, as much as they'd like to be, aren't always as homogeneous and cohesive in branding and approach as they'd like to be. The following is also anecdotal: I work in the contact center world, and it's pretty surprising just how isolated and disconnected some companies are when it comes not just to brick and mortar vs e-com, but e-com and it's call centers. Add in more prefaces/cya's that I haven't done formal research on the subject where necessary :)
calinet6 13y ago
If you can tell me how Typekit Sync falls into this legal spaghetti, I'd give you a gold star. Because either it solves a lot of problems, or it creates some new ones and basically makes it super easy to fall into a license trap.
adrianhoward 13y ago
"Open-source typography is flourishing, but that doesn't mean commercial typography is dead" The two should also not be opposites. There should be room for commercial open-source typography. If it isn't the typography world is going to be poorer - coz designing good fonts is a hard, skilled, time consuming task and not everybody has the time and inclination to do it for free. (Otherwise we're going to see more things like the recent non-OSS fork of Merriweather for example http://ebensorkin.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/the-pro-merriweather-merriweather-st-is-now-available-at-webink/ http://ebensorkin.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/the-pro-merriweat...)
mgkimsal 13y ago
"Branding agencies use proprietary type families when they're the most appropriate for the job" Except... they sometimes don't appreciate the breadth of the 'job'. For agency A to get their 'job' done, using fonts ABC works just fine. But now when that same font needs to be use in other areas they're not licensed for, their client either can't have the same brand experience in other media, or has to pay a heftier price to do so, or is running afoul of the licensing terms. This is a couple steps above people just going to google images and grabbing whatever images come up for their own websites. Still same licensing/terms-of-use problems, just with a higher price tag attached. And somehow, when people are using big fancy agency XYZ, they think (rightly?) that the agency always knows what they're doing (often they do, but sometimes they don't).

_greim_ 13y ago

> Open-source typography is flourishing, but that doesn't mean commercial typography is dead. Agreed, I just think the pendulum hasn't swung far enough on the open direction, because of the relative newness of the tech. In other words, it seems that branding agencies sometimes use proprietary type families out of habit and ignorance, not because they've evaluated the tradeoffs and made a careful choice.

Silhouette 13y ago
In other words, it seems that branding agencies sometimes use proprietary type families out of habit and ignorance, not because they've evaluated the tradeoffs and made a careful choice. I think their choice is more rational than you give credit for. While there are now quite a few good freely available fonts for use on your blog or small business site, there are still few, if any, open font families that offer the same breadth as good commercial offerings. If you're a large organisation, bringing in an agency to create overall branding guidelines that will apply to everything you produce from slideshows to printed brochures via web apps and business cards, it would be foolish of that agency to suggest typography that didn't offer enough range to be future-proof.
- _greim_ 13y ago
  Perhaps. I can certainly appreciate that a brand designer may be worrying about a wide range of print and advertising media, and in that grand scheme of concerns the web isn't all that important.
- doorhammer 13y ago
  My (anecdotal) experience has been that given a large enough organization, you're probably going to run into a lot of subsets of the organization that just don't know any better or aren't aware of the company branding strategy and guidelines. It's probably a reasonable bet to say that most of those groups won't be creating public facing content, but I've seen it happen often enough before. Not a broad study, but an interesting note. Basically, just that it's useful to remember that large organizations, as much as they'd like to be, aren't always as homogeneous and cohesive in branding and approach as they'd like to be. The following is also anecdotal: I work in the contact center world, and it's pretty surprising just how isolated and disconnected some companies are when it comes not just to brick and mortar vs e-com, but e-com and it's call centers. Add in more prefaces/cya's that I haven't done formal research on the subject where necessary :)

calinet6 13y ago

If you can tell me how Typekit Sync falls into this legal spaghetti, I'd give you a gold star. Because either it solves a lot of problems, or it creates some new ones and basically makes it super easy to fall into a license trap.

adrianhoward 13y ago

"Open-source typography is flourishing, but that doesn't mean commercial typography is dead" The two should also not be opposites. There should be room for commercial open-source typography. If it isn't the typography world is going to be poorer - coz designing good fonts is a hard, skilled, time consuming task and not everybody has the time and inclination to do it for free. (Otherwise we're going to see more things like the recent non-OSS fork of Merriweather for example http://ebensorkin.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/the-pro-merriweather-merriweather-st-is-now-available-at-webink/ http://ebensorkin.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/the-pro-merriweat...)

mgkimsal 13y ago

"Branding agencies use proprietary type families when they're the most appropriate for the job" Except... they sometimes don't appreciate the breadth of the 'job'. For agency A to get their 'job' done, using fonts ABC works just fine. But now when that same font needs to be use in other areas they're not licensed for, their client either can't have the same brand experience in other media, or has to pay a heftier price to do so, or is running afoul of the licensing terms. This is a couple steps above people just going to google images and grabbing whatever images come up for their own websites. Still same licensing/terms-of-use problems, just with a higher price tag attached. And somehow, when people are using big fancy agency XYZ, they think (rightly?) that the agency always knows what they're doing (often they do, but sometimes they don't).