Typophile - Font designers & multi year contracts? - Comments

I think perhaps Jason

Roger S. Nelsson — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:46:30 -0700

I think perhaps Jason Walcott works exclusively for Veer - they have purchased the rights to his whole library, and he still develops new fonts.
Or something to that effect.

Veer also have quite a few exclusive fonts by Alejando Paul, but many other of his fonts are available from other sources like FontShop and MyFonts, so he is not completely exclusive for Veer.

Only examples I can think of offhand...

I could imagine it might be

kentlew — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:07:12 -0700

I could imagine it might be in a foundry’s interest to establish such a deal — something like you might find in book publishing, where a publisher negotiates first right of refusal for a popular author’s next several titles.

But in today’s market, I think most freelance type designers would not be interested in any such restrictions.

Note that back in Dwiggins’s day, there were no such thing as royalties on sales of type. WAD’s agreement amounted to something like a yearly retainer. So this would have been a more attractive arrangement.

Things work differently now.

— K.

So it has been done before,

Hiroshige — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:30:47 -0700

So it has been done before, that’s great. I was thinking that with today’s dramatic increase in font design participation that a few talented designers would have landed the same sort of contract.

Perhaps the internet now gives font designers more creative and financial security. Or, perhaps font shacks just aren’t interested in signing design talent to a multi year deal.

In 1929, W.A. Dwiggins made

kentlew — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:20:24 -0700

In 1929, W.A. Dwiggins made an agreement with Mergenthaler Linotype whereby he would design typefaces only for them. But you’re probably looking for something current.

Font designers & multi year contracts?

Hiroshige — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:52:14 -0700

Has a font designer ever been signed to an exculsive multi year deal by a font shack like FontFont ...or whomever, to produce fonts just for them?