For myself, to solve problems that I invent, like "what would a monowidth unicase typeface look like?"
I anticipate a market for such self-indulgent frivolities, on the hunch that the kind of formal issues which interest me are a more general phenomenon of society, and that these typefaces will occasionally strike a chord with others.

My target audience is definitely the professional, but I wouldn't say that I design for her/him, like Nick I design for myself, to try things out, to challenge the way we read and speak and to get my ideas out of the system. I sell my own stuff, so I don't have to make my designs fit a certain profile, which is a great privilige.

I don't think of applications when I design. Sometimes I think 'the word 'caff

If you design for yourself, why sell the finished work then? Not being an ••• just for the sake of it, but c'mon. No profession is that self-serving where one does stuff only for one's self. Type designers make typefaces in hope that they get used, right? If not, what would be the point of doing them? Simply to <em>show them off</em> seems a silly reason.

When you are starting to design a typeface, I'm sure even the slightest of intentions is worked into it, whether you are thinking "This would look bitchin' on a billboard" or "I'm sure a designer can run this at 4 pt and still be legible". There has to be the slightest of intent to appeal to somebody

I'll bite Armin . . .

I design type first for me, second for the masses (anybody with a computer and a credit card who likes fonts). I feel completely indulgent in my profession and in the back of my mind I honestly do think I can't wait for other people to see and use these fonts and hope they think they are as cool as I do.

I want my fonts to inspire people.

I don't care if they use the fonts for personal birthday party invites or cereal boxes. I want people to see the fonts in use and feel a connection to the fonts and the message being communicated to them.

I think as an art director for many years I felt there was this 'ultimate' consumer I was designing for - straight up demographics (Female 24-37, Income . . .). Then i tried to get into their heads and invent people to design ads to and it left me very empty.

Once I started making type, I started having more satisfaction in my work because I felt, if every designer in the world starts using my fonts, in 10 years my porfolio is going to hit the millions. (I'm not so concerned about my portfolio these days)

I don't need to design every ad in the world and honestly have no desire to, there are people who are better than me and really love making ads. BUT, if I can make better typefaces for designers and consumers to use and see in use, I feel I am enabling better communication with my talents instead of working up headlines with a copyrighter and doing tons of layouts through the night.

I recently wrote in an editorial piece that I think we're living in a more typographically aware world than say 10 years ago. Mark my words in a few years time don't be surprised to see our intimate type community explode into the mainstream.

Stuart :D

Armin, great question.

I think the first thing to note here is that retail type design is so unlikely to provide a sufficient and steady income to most individuals that it does in fact make sense that so many people "indulge" in it. Some of those people make their living with custom type work (which is generally less rewarding "spiritually"), or in a totally different field. The net result is that the designs are very "divergent" in terms of utility: they are unlikely to be best-sellers, but some people will have wet dreams (personal joke intentional ;-) over some of them. It's more like Art, and some people (like me) actually have a problem with that, since I have to question how that serves other people. Designing to answer some funky personal riddle or whatever seems a bit too bourgeois for me. :-) I already have a BMW - I'm bourgeois enough!

Personally, when I design a font "out of the blue" I try to make it something end-users, more than designers, need - and simply hope that there are designers out there who think the same way, and want to deliver that same kind of typography to their "users", so they end up needing that certain kind of font. I'm not claiming that I do this because I'm a noble person or something, it's probably simply due to my nature (which is out of my hands) - I enjoy satisfying other people (although maybe only if they're "in tune" with me). So for example I made the Akhakalak Georgian font because I saw that the Georgian script is too wide, and wanted to give people a display face that would set narrow, like on bottle labels for their wonderful wines. And when I made Nour (Armenian) you could say I targeted even beyond what Armenian users think they need, or what they say they want: I targeted what I think Armenian typography needs now. And once in a while I run into a designer who "gets it" and enthusiastically pays me to get a copy of it. It's sort of like a cultural crusade.

The other thing that turns me on though is solving technical issues with new fonts, like pushing the limits of readability, or fighting lo-fi repro. That's the engineer in me.

hhp

Thanks Hrant and Stuart. Those are the kind of things that are intriguing. Being a graphic designer, it is very clear for me who I design for: I design for my client's clients but I give them the impression that I'm designing for them (the direct clients). So I basically have two clients, or targets, I have to please. However, for type designers it does seem a bit more vague and fluctuating from one type designer to the next.

Do you ever listen to graphic designers' opinions on what typefaces they like and why the choose one over another? We are a snobbish and bitchy bunch, so I can understand why sometimes our opinions could be shunned.

Do you react to trends? If retro scripts are in fashion do you set out to do one and cash in?

This is an intriguing question. When I was a student I wanted to design a typeface for my senior BFA project. Two different instructors had differing opinions about how I should proceed. One suggested I create a hypothetical client or a design problem to solve and therefore be better able to measure the success of the project. The other instructor took the opposite view, suggesting I design it for me and let it be more of a personal expression.

(I'd encourage any design student with the hankering for type to try it out. I'm no type designer, but that exercise has made me much more comfortable pushing type around, experimenting and questioning the norms.)

I believe there is room for both approaches. If it weren't for the personal expression we wouldn't have typefaces like Amplitude or Tarzana or anything from Stuart or Test Pilot Collective.

Armin, I know you wanted to focus on non-commissioned types, but you can't deny the place commissioned faces have on the typo-landscape. Consider Clearview, Bell Gothic, Hoefler Text, Retina or Frutiger (which are all available for retail sale after their original exclusivity has expired). The list is endless, and the innovations on the utilitarian front are huge. That can't always be said of more personal designs.

Ahem, now I'll shutup and let the type designers speak.

I work in advertising during the day and have to adjust my designs to client's needs and wants. At night I design type and I can honestly say that I don't think of a target audience and how to please them, if my design pleases someone, it's fine.
I'd like to compare it to the music industry, I generally feel more for music that's been made because the artist wanted it that way rather than music that has a target audience, the same with movies. You could argue that my approach is too artistic, and you'd probably be right, but that's the way I work. I try to move people with my design, influence them and push them around, I don't think I could do that if I gave in to their wants.

I listen to designers opinions, but I only hear these opinion after the font has been published. I do, however,sometimes add characters to fonts if designers need a special character, but that's more like customer service than design.

Whether we like it or not we all react to trends, some designers more knowingly than others.

I design for an octogenarian ethnic Tartar living in an apartment block just north of the Moscow ringroad. She doesn't know I exist or that I am designing typefaces for her.

John. One day she'll find out, It'll affect her shopping that day immensely.

Good idea Joe! Sounds like fun, you may have ruined my summer

Yes good question.
I can only answer it not in a WHO, but a HOW way.

When I think of designing for an audience, I accept that all I know are my own experiences, my own emotions and reactions, my own understanding of history. To believe that I was designing for anyone else would;
a) leave me feeling unable to judge the success of the work,
b) cause me to try and be someone else/pretend to be looking with soemone else's eyes. I dont thing this is possible.

My career has been the EDUCATION of MY perception and taste, which for me, is the diversified understanding and empathy with the arts of the world that interest me. Of course I'm open to dilettantism.

For example, if I were to design a typeface for a French newspaper, I would not only educate myself about the French language and it's peculiatities, but also try to connect with that part of ME that empathizes with the bits of French culture I've experienced.

There is also something in designing a typeface that is about the continuation of a craft/art form. Could this be expressed as designing for all the typedesigners that have gone before you? It sounds pretentious, but I thing there's something in it.

Before answering if we follow trends, please answer to that question!:

What kind of typefaces people will want to use in around 5 years? I have no answer to that, specially because the answer must be different by cultural area.

I'm not able to imagine that Din will be a so great success, when i have see it in its redesigned version on FF catalog years ago. Consider also that is not because a typeface is beautiful or whatsoever, that it will be successful. There is so many side elements, presence in software bundle, size of the distributor, etc.

I don't think that Times or Arial/Helv. success is due to the design, just because they are widely available for decennies.


When designing for retail market, the decisions are purely personal, based on virtual problem to resolve. When designing for a client, obviously, I built my answer to his brief, needs, that generally he can't explain with typographical vocabulary.

In booths case, the result still very personal, like a photographer or an illustrator style.

> I only hear these opinion after the font has been published.

Then you do much more than most!

Miles, I like your answer.

hhp

Do you ever listen to graphic designers' opinions on what typefaces they like and why the choose one over another? We are a snobbish and bitchy bunch, so I can understand why sometimes our opinions could be shunned.

The suggestions and comments usually don't come to me in that manner where I query designers and ask them what they are looking for. Usually most of what I want to create I originate from my own opinions about what I want to do but regarding outside influences, sometimes I'll get a random e-mail from somebody who has a neat idea or is looking for a font they haven't seen. Case in point I'm working on an old school tattoo font for the next collection that I wouldn't have ever attempted because I just haven't personally had a passion to get a tattoo, but tattoo lettering is SWEET!

Do you react to trends? If retro scripts are in fashion do you set out to do one and cash in?

I've been making retro scripts since 1996 when they weren't in fashion, I'm glad they've caught on :D - To answer your question, when I select specimens that I plan to flesh out into complete fonts, I very much look at them and try to figure out if they have enough commercial marketability to be made or not. I also have a visual dictionary of typefaces in my brain which steers me away from making something that's already out there. I think it's important to react only to ones own intuition.

Stuart :D

Interesting

I design for an octogenarian ethnic Tartar living in an apartment block just north of the Moscow ringroad. She doesn't know I exist or that I am designing typefaces for her.

John, certain characters are important to her. I for one was glad I had found this last summer when I was in Russia:

Armin, I think we should be concerned.
One obstacle is the lack of communication - if you could open some kind of channel, that would rule.

hhp

steve that's hilarious! for the rest of you who don't read russian

I design for graphic designers.

To me, the challenge type designers face is balancing the wishes
and needs of graphic designers against their own preferences
and knowledge of letterform design. Striking a balance between the
two worlds is relative to ones preferences but the work should
ultimately be made for users. Seeing my work in use is just
as fulfilling as making it.

The wishes of graphic designers are tricky though...
I'm of the feeling that work should be contemporary and contribute
in some way to the work that has preceded it. So needles to say,
retro scripts and auto traced Arrighi italics are not on my radar.

It depends on the typeface, but I tend to have a rather narrow idea about how a typeface I'm designing might be used. But I also I know that other people will most likely not see it the same way I do and will have their own ideas about how to use it, often in ways I never anticipated. So I try to focus on the type itself, how it relates to other typefaces, its formal qualities like texture, themes, balance, optical effects, how these things are carried out over a family, etc.

It's a bit like creating a musical instrument rather than a piece of music. Sometimes you have a pretty good idea how it might be used (like with a revival) and sometimes you don't (like when you do something more innovative).

Mostly I try to please myself and hope others will see some potential in what I've created. After all, a typeface is a rather pointless thing until someone decides it's worthy to carry a message.

Thanks guys, I do appreciate the insight.

Hrant, "some kind of channel" has been added to my long-term "to do" list. I think it would be a beneficial kind of channel.

Long, shmong - do it now! (Please...)
We do need designers to tell us what sucks and what rocks, pronto.

hhp

I make my living as a graphic designer and do that work for my clients. Type design (and my personal typgraphy) I do for myself because it is the purest form of symbolism and has much to teach me. If someone chooses to use a font I have designed then that would give me pleasure but at this stage of my life, I expect little in the way of reward or recognition.

ChrisL

>We do need designers to tell us what sucks and what rocks, pronto.

Why?
If I'm in it for the money, I can figure out from the marketplace what people want.
If I'm in it for self-expression, I don't care what others think.
If I want critical appraisal, I can enter a competition, or post my design to the Typophile Critique forum.
And, as JFP says, just because we know what people want today, is no guarantee of what they will want tomorrow.

Besides, graphic designers are a niche market for fonts. Adobe estimates the number of graphic artists increased by a factor of 25, from 250,000 to 6 million, between 1985 and 2000 (Inside the Publishing revolution, Pfiffner) -- the majority of these are not AIGA members, more likely NAPP members. Add to this the prosumers, such as in that hot new font market, scrapbooking, and you can see that it would be extremely blinkered to look to graphic designers for feedback on font design.

Check out the typefaces used by the winners of the AIGA "50 books" competition, and you will see that the majority appear to be older faces (AG is frequent), with the others a broad variety.

There is absolutely no reason for market research of this kind, even if it were possible or affordable. Fonts that do not sell are not huge investments in material resources, sitting on warehouse shelves.

> There is absolutely no reason for market research of this kind

That's nuts. It's one thing to see limits in the relevance of getting feedback from designers*, it's quite another to totally ignore this important source of guidance. And by all means, poll the scarpbookers too. The point is, don't ignore other people.

* Even though they happen to be the best potential customers for "high-end" fonts (like Bilak's and DTL's) as opposed to $25 consumables, or stale classics.

If you're in it for the money, listening to your customers provides a much more efficient mechanism than waiting years for aggregate sales figures (by which time -as you allude to- it will be too late). If you're in it for the self-expression, don't make fonts, go paint something. And there's another reason to make fonts: serving the needs of others - for which listening to them is key.

As for using design competitions to figure out market merit: gag me with a spoon.

hhp

Hrant,

"If you're in it for the self-expression, don't make fonts, go paint something."

Why would that be?

http://lanstontype.com/BoquetOfFlowers.html
http://lanstontype.com/ArabesqueProof.html
http://lanstontype.com/ATFCover.html

Hrant, not doing formal market research is not the same as ignoring other people.

When developing retail fonts, I work by hunch, as I said. I think that's a better way to connect with other creatives than by market research, which is a CAPITALIST EVIL by which I do not intend to be "guided".

>>CAPITALIST EVIL

so much for the invisible hand???

I tend to align myself with Nicks post from the perspective that the 'graphic designers' of the world are not my target audience.

As I mentioned earlier on, anybody with a computer is my audience and if they've become saavy enough to educate themselves about typography and fonts enough to look for and purchase fonts, why should I spend time developing a product to suit one industry when I know people come into typography from all walks of life.

Education vehicles such as scrapbooking and general internet and computer usage have made it easier to motivate non-designers to explore our field so I prefer to develop a product that is inclusive of my entire audience instead of suiting a very focused group.

Stuart :D

I tend to think that even for an individual designer, the "target audience" may vary from one typeface to the next.

To date, I have almost always designed first for myself. I want to be satisfied with what I have made. If it's saleable and Adobe is willing to pick it up, so much the better. But I won't count on it.

Now, I can easily see me getting into the state of doing a first rough prototype of some letters, and showing it around to see if there's much possibility that Adobe would pick it up. If not, I might switch to another project, unless I was particularly excited about the one I had just started.

My current type family started because one of Adobe's product teams complained about Adobe's then-new font bundling policy. We now only bundle fonts that Adobe owns 100%. They had wanted Futura, but now they couldn't have it, and we didn't have any other geometric sans serif they could use.

That got me to thinking that it was interesting that there were no geometric sans faces that Adobe owned outright. Although I've done a couple of dozen families to the prototype stage or beyond over the years, I'd never tried a geometric sans serif. So I decided to give it a whirl.

One of the interesting things about type design is that at some point you discover that the typeface has its own "voice"; listening intently to that voice is a key part of type design, IMO. Certain elements or letters in the typeface may turn out to be the touchstones of the work. If you come up with something that does not go with those elements, or doesn't match well with a touchstone letter, no matter how clever or beautiful it is, it will have to go.

Sometimes the voice of the typeface turns out to be rather different than what one had in mind when the project started. For instance, my intended geometric sans works better than I had expected/intended at text sizes, and is neither strictly geometric nor even entirely sans serif, as it turns out.* (Though I think it has remained on track in other aspects of my self-generated design brief.)

* I may not be alone in this one. I gather that Goudy Sans was the result of a foundry asking Goudy to make them a competitor to Futura.

Regards,

T

P.S. Typing with one hand is hard.

> Typing with one hand is hard.

:->
I hope you have a Control key on both sides...
I don't, and even with both hands it's pissy.

Just be happy you don't have to breastfeed while typing.

hhp

Thomas, Hrant,

Typing with one hand is not so hard, at least according to this Canadian company:

http://www.halfkeyboard.com/

I bought the keyboard when it was ~ $100 US thinking that I could leave my right hand on a tablet, but never really manage to do that.

On panther, there is a software called uControl which can do a similar function:

http://www.gnufoo.org/ucontrol/

However, you have to enable the code during the compile time since it may infringe the patent issued to Matias.

Chanop

Thomas, was any research done as to whether Adobe users wanted Futura bundled with their software, or was it assumed by the product team that Futura was missing, or that this niche (geometric sans) should be filled?

Can you give us some idea of the size of the target audience that receives these Adobe font bundles?

Chanop, I also remember this funky text-entry device which looked like a large blob you would rest one hand on, and perform keystrokes with minimal wrist movements - but I forget the name, or what ever happened to it.

hhp

The latter, afaik. Of course, if research is evil, that would be the "right" way to do it, no?

As far as size of audience, it depends on the application. Something like Photoshop Album is mass market, Photoshop Elements reaches a huge "prosumer" audience, and then the mainstream professional graphics products (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) reach a smaller but still pretty large audience. Probably 95%+ of professional graphic designers and DTP production folks have at least one major Adobe application.

In this particular example, I think the application whose comments sparked me to start the design was Photoshop Album, though I'm not 100% sure.

Cheers,

T

>Of course, if research is evil, that would be the "right" way to do it, no?

Rounding out one's product line by filling in genre gaps is certainly research-free, and it appeals to the eclectic in me. But I'm not sure whether it's a good idea for the independent. I would have a stronger brand identity if I specialized in a particular genre of type, and left it to the larger outfits to be all things to all people.

Thomas, can you give us some idea of the number of people who receive font bundles with their software, for the products you mentioned?

Is it in the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions?

I think you're right that there are some specialization approaches that are likely to work well for small foundries, and don't make sense for large ones.

Units shipped per year, as a rough approximation, I think it would be tens of thousands for a program that is not selling very large numbers, hundreds of thousands for a professional graphics app that does very well, and millions for a prosumer app that does very well.

Cheers,

T

Thanks for the info, Thomas.

At the moment, I design typefaces for me. It is me educating myself. No-one else is at the moment and I find the process very satisfying. They aren't really intended to send shockwaves of rabid originality throught the type world [hopefully that will come later ;) ] becuase right now it is for my own experience.

kris.

the thougth that other designers will be using my typefaces is always in the back of my head when i draw them. but the style of the face is driven by what i want to do at that time, not the market. my problem is that by the time the typeface is finished i'm sick of it. i have almost never used any of my own typefaces. it's like i know them too well, and i just keep seeing the things that i should have done better.

I like to draw letters. It makes sense to design typefaces as well.
This means I design for myself. My fonts are not available for sale
and I usually keep them hidden from the public.
If someone does like one enough to want to use it, they can have it.
It is pure self indulgence for me.

GMcA