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Ascender/Hallmark - ridiculous pricing
Posted by HVB in
23 Nov 2011 — 3:24pm
23 Nov 2011 — 3:24pm
What's wrong with this picture?
I just noticed that AscenderCorporation is selling a large number of Hallmark's HMK fonts - at $29.99 each. Dozens of these fonts are included with each of Hallmark's Greeting Card programs - which retail at about $25! A small example - Hallmark's Card Studio 2011 sells for $25 and includes 20 HMK fonts. Purchasing those fonts from Ascender would cost $600, and you wouldn't even get the card-making application.
- Herb
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23 Nov 2011 — 3:38pm
Sounds like a bargain to me. Those fonts, although I have not seen the list, are designed by extremely knowing professionals, I am sure Zapf is among the luminaries. There is not a speck of junk among anything the could possibly offer.
Michael
23 Nov 2011 — 3:39pm
Without seeing any picture, I guess it’s a difference in licensing.
Buying the fonts off the Ascender website, you are free to use the font for (virtually) any project in any application.
Getting the fonts with the card-making app allows using the fonts in the card-making app only. (I am sure you can read that in the EULA)
23 Nov 2011 — 3:50pm
OK went to see the fonts, just be judicious with what you buy :-)
Zapf was a catalyst at Hallmark form the late 60's on. His work informed much that was done there. Some of these fonts are less informed than others. This is as a result of their foray into the casual card market.
Michael
23 Nov 2011 — 4:06pm
Indeed, I just looked at the EULA for the Mac Greeting Card program: no commercial use is allowed, and one isn't permitted to make any use of the resources outside the program.
23 Nov 2011 — 9:08pm
"and you wouldn't even get the card-making application"
What a loss.
24 Nov 2011 — 4:48pm
@HVB - Hallmark has an amazing library of proprietary fonts they created over the years for their use in greeting cards and other products they develop. And as you pointed out, they did in fact license a small set of fonts for use with a Hallmark greeting card software application targeted at consumers and home users.
It has been an honor for us to have partnered with Hallmark to bring a selection of these fonts to market at AscenderFonts (and also at Fonts.com and Linotype.com).
As pointed out, one of the significant differences is that these new commercial versions of the Hallmark fonts are sold with a traditional commercial font license that designers typically expect.
Another key difference is that the talented type designers at Hallmark extended the character sets to full Latin 1 (codepage 1252), and produced both TrueType and OpenType (.otf) versions.
Thus, these new versions of the Hallmark fonts are much more suitable to creative professionals. And as to the "ridiculous pricing", I would counter that these new commercial versions are a bargain when you consider the effort that went in to crafting them, along with their range of creative and expressive personalities.
24 Nov 2011 — 10:07pm
Thank you all for the clarification. - I wasn't aware of the differences in the EULA, which certainly explains the significant cost difference.
When I described the pricing as 'ridiculous', it was regarding the large differential between the separate retail price (which is the same directly from Hallmark) and the packaged price. It was not a comment on the quality of the fonts.
- Herb