Week 4 Discussion - Font Usage and Copyrights

Learning Objectives Covered

• LO 03.07 - Compare the quality and usability of free novelty fonts vs. classic paid fonts
• LO 03.08 - Discuss general guidelines as they apply to copyright restrictions in font usage

Career Relevancy

There are thousands of fonts available to designers in the field. To serve yourself and your clients better, it is important to understand what you need to look for when purchasing, and downloading new fonts. You also want to be sure of the copy and usage rights of that font. Using a font outside of the licensing restrictions can get you and your client in legal trouble and imposed copyright fines that can be very expensive.

Background

Start searching for fonts online, and you will get thousands of results. Some have to be purchased from established font foundries and software companies; others are free for personal or commercial use. But all fonts are not created equal. Nor does every situation call for a sophisticated font family. Before deciding where to look for fonts, evaluate the project and consider some of the needs. Is it a project for school, or your own practice rather than a professional project you are getting paid for? Is the design for a one-time stand-alone project, or is it the beginning of a series of work that will need to be expanded on in the future? How about the cost and the quantity of the production? Is it an offer on a web banner that will only be posted for a couple of weeks, a packaging label that is going to be printed in 20,000 copies, or large costly wrap for a building? Are you creating a new brand identity, or is the project part of an already established brand? You will need to evaluate the needs, and then compare the quality and usability to determine if the cost and quality of a finer font will be worth it – or if a cheaper (or free) version will suffice.

Font copyright, licensing and usage rights

A “font” is a computer file or program (when used digitally) that informs your printer or display how a letter or character is supposed to be shown. A “typeface”, on the other hand, is a set of letters, numbers and other symbols whose forms are designed to be used to compose text or other combination of characters. Generally, copyright law in the U.S. does not protect typefaces, but fonts may be protected as long as it qualifies as computer software or a program. This means that (U.S.) copyright only protects the font software, not the artistic design of the typeface.

For example, a designer may customize a typeface to use it as a logo design. While the typeface itself is not subject to copyright protection, the logo design itself can be protected as an artistic piece.

“When you purchase a commercial font, you are purchasing a license to use the font software. Your rights and obligations are defined in the End User License Agreement (EULA). Those agreements will vary among fonts and among font makers – so read them very carefully to understand what you can and cannot do with the fonts you’re licensing” (Kimbarovsky, 2011).

The right to sub-license a font is governed by the EULA (Links to an external site.). If you have purchased the font yourself you cannot send the client the font file unless the EULA specifically permits you to do so. This can mean that if the client will need to use the font outside of your design, they will be required to purchase their own license to use it. If the client pays for the font, they own the usage rights and you will not retain those after the project is over.

Most logo designers that are using their own font library avoid potential problems with font licensing by converting their logotype to outlines (using Adobe Illustrator for example) and sending the client a vectorized outline of the logo (but not the font file). This also ensures that anyone who is sent the logo for reproduction will not have problems with the usage rights.

Each font you download and install on your computer will include a file that will hold all the EULA information and usage rights for that font. These can vary greatly from font to font and are established by the designer of the font. You will have to look up this file to know all the specific usage details for that specific font.

Reference:

Kimbarovsky, R. (2011, March 23). The Law on Fonts and Typefaces: Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved July 18, 2017, from https://blog.crowdspring.com/2011/03/font-law-licensing/ (Links to an external site.)

Prompt

For this week’s discussion, start with picturing the following scenario: You have been commissioned to create a poster for a Music Festival fundraiser for a community garden. Your client has purchased the font family, ITC Novarese https://www.fonts.com/font/itc/itc-novarese (Links to an external site.), that they use on all of their branded material but they are open for you to use an additional more unique or decorative font that will work well with the font provided, however, the client does not have a budget to purchase another font.

Look at the “client’s font” and its copyright restrictions then find a font not already on your system that you would want to use on the poster. Make sure that the font you choose works well with the font your client requires you to use. Once you have determined this font, take a screenshot of it and embed it in your initial post. Also, include a link to the font then address the following:

On the “client’s font”:

• After reading the “client’s font” copyright info, how would you acquire this font if you did not already own it? Explain your reasoning for your approach.
  Things to consider: Can he “give” it to you to use since it’s for his project? Are there any circumstances where you wouldn’t have to purchase it yourself?
• Would the conditions of the usage terms change if it was a pro-bono project (Links to an external site.)? If so, how?

For the additional font you choose for the poster: (embed (Links to an external site.) a screenshot (Links to an external site.) and a link to the font you choose)

• When looking for the additional font, what was your strategy of finding a font to adhere to your client's budget?
• What was your thought process (what did you look at on the client’s font) to come up with the best solution for the additional font you would use?
• Did you find any restrictions of usage on the “free font” sites you explored? If so, what were they?
• What would you do if none of the free fonts you looked at had the quality you are needing but you found a font that you needed to purchase?
• Would your decisions be different if it was a pro-bono project? How and why?