Introduction

The world of independent type and font licensing has changed drastically in recent years.

Young designers are challenging the status quo, established foundries are questioning if their methods and metrics are antiquated, and susceptible foundries are selling parts of their catalog or their entire foundry to private equity firms and leaving their customers and patrons to fend themselves against the bullying tactics of the monoliths they are now beholden to.

I originally built the Type Foundry Directory as a tool for myself. At the time, it was effectively a public version of my bookmarks which later became an easy way to see what foundries offered self-hosted webfonts or had trial fonts available.

Today, it is a bit more complicated. The landscape of font licensing is constantly changing, and the directory’s original simplicity no longer fit my needs.

And the further I get into my career as a designer, the more I realize that font licensing isn’t just a design decision. For a growing company, it might be a business decision. For a global company, it might be an accessibility decision. For a small business, it might be a financial decision. For a local restaurant, it might be a geographic decision. For a technology company, it might be a privacy decision.

I revamped the directory to not only better understand the industry, but to serve as a tool in my efforts of being a better business partner to my clients, and to be more reflective of what I look for when licensing type.

This article is intended to help you understand the directory’s structure, how information is logged, and unpacks its underlying biases.

Disclaimer(s)

I am not a lawyer

I may have read over 400 EULAs (End User License Agreements), but that does not make me a lawyer and this directory does not constitute as legal advice.

Subject to change

Much like the directory itself, this is a living document and it is subject to change.

Not an encylopedia

The directory is simply a conduit to independent foundries. It’s not insider baseball. It’s not the end all be all. And it’s certainly not an encyclopedic effort. It is opinionated. It is often flawed. It is perpetually out of date. And as simple database, it is not conducive to nuance.

Think of this as the starting point. Do your own exploring. Do your own research.

How are foundries selected?

There isn’t a particular criteria or brief a foundry must fulfill. The directory is largely filtered through one very subjective question: “Does this foundry have any fonts I would recommend to someone else?”

The elephant in the room

The directory does not feature Monotype or any of their subsidiaries. The directory also does not feature any foundries whose fonts are exclusively available through MyFonts or any other Monotype affiliated marketplaces.

Founded

I tend to veer on the side of caution when it comes to founded dates. Unless a foundry explicitly states their founded date on their site, the launch of the foundry is documented, e.g., on social media, or I have talked with them directly, I’ll likely leave it blank.

Documenting founded dates for individual type designers is a little trickier especially when they have other careers within design and the line between their practices is blurred.

Countries

Over the years, I have received a handful of requests to add country data to the directory. These requests primarily stem from two points of view:

1. A designer is working on a project whose typographic choices should be geographically informed (i.e. they are working on a French bakery and are looking for fonts from a French type foundry)
2. A designer is working on a location specific project and wants their licensing costs to directly contribute to the local economy

Despite their similarities, the Venn diagram of these two perspectives is not just one big circle. And in the age of remote work and the foundry-as-publisher model, these perspectives pose a series of questions that make collecting this data rather complicated:

• If a type foundry operated by one person was born in one country, but now lives and operates in another, which country should be listed? According to the first perspective, only their birth country should be listed, but according to the second, the country they are living in should be listed.
• If a type foundry technically has its office in one country, but has employees in other countries, which countries should be listed?
• Similarly, if a foundry has published a font from a designer from a different country, should their country also be listed?

For a long time, I refused to collect this data because I was afraid of confronting these questions. It seemed that every way I tried to cut it, there was no right answer. But that’s okay. And it took me a long time to come to terms with that and being comfortable with the directory being flawed.

As a result, I take a very liberal approach to the country data recorded here which attempts to satisfy both perspectives (if you’re willing to put in the work). When tasked with explaining my approach, I often use two foundries as examples:

1. Commercial Type on paper has two offices: NYC and London. But their team is much more distributed than that. Just considering their full time, they have Miguel Reyes who is both from and based in Mexico, and Julien Priez who is both from and based in France. When you consider all of their collaborators, this list of countries grows significantly. Frankly, simply listing the USA and the UK flattens the contributions of their global collaborators and doesn’t properly reflect their foundry. So if you view Commercial’s listing in the directory, you will find a bunch of countries listed.
2. Signal Type is the one-person operation of Max Phillips. Originally born in New York, Max and his foundry are now based in Dublin which is why I elect to list both the USA and Ireland for his foundry.

As I mentioned, this data is flawed. If you see something that is incorrect, outdated, or in need of an update, please get in touch.

It only feels appropriate to front load the flaws of the directory. So let’s start by clearing the air: I fully acknowledge that scripts ≠ languages. However, throughout the directory you will often see scripts and languages listed in tandem, and in favor of simplicity and familiarity “Language support” is used as a blanket term for both supported scripts and languages.

In lieu of listing every language, most languages are consolidated into their parent scripts. However, some exceptions are made like in the case of Vietnamese. While a part of the Latin script, Vietnamese isn’t as widely supported as other Euro-centric Latin languages which is why it has its own searchable tag.

Language support listings are fairly generous—a foundry need only offer a single typeface in a listed script or language for it to be included.

I will also acknowledge there is an implicit Latin bias to the directory. There are most definitely scripts and languages beyond my familiarity that can be potentially consolidated, and perhaps some that I am over simplifying. As I mentioned, this data is flawed. If you see something that is incorrect, outdated, or in need of an update, please get in touch.

Intro to licensing

Kris Sowersby said it best, “Font licensing is hard. There’s no easy solution or quick fix.”

It’s hard for foundries to define. It is hard for designers to understand. And it is hard for customers to navigate. Font licensing is hard because it is complex. How does one balance the technical needs of the licensee, the design needs of the users, and the business needs of the foundry?

Over the years, I’ve seen various people—from designers to businesses to foundries—cry for unified font licensing terms, but different needs call for different approaches.

The licensing terms which fit the needs of a large business may not be tenable or appropriate for a small business or sole proprietor. The terms that are financially sustainable for an independent type designer may not be for a foundry with an entire staff.

If we unify licensing terms, who then sets the standard? Who benefits and who loses out?

Licensing is an agreement, and an agreement inherently enters you into a relationship. One thing you have to come to terms with is that not every relationship is the same. Not every relationship works out. Not every relationship is the right fit. But it is also worth keeping in mind that agreements can be negotiated. If a foundry’s terms don’t fit your needs, contact them! From my experience, most small foundries are willing to work with you.

Given there is no singular answer, I’ve found that licensing naturally reveals itself as a reflection of values. Licensing becomes a way of understanding where a foundries priorities lie and if they align with yours or your clients.

I built this directory to help surface these values, and bring to light the complexities of font licensing so we might better navigate them together.

Purchasing power parity

Purchasing power parity (PPP) is a measure that adjusts for differences in prices between countries, so that the effective purchasing power of any given currency is more equitable across countries.

The Big Mac Index, introduced in 1986, is a more colloquial approach to displaying the effects of purchasing power parity between two economies. At the time of writing this, a Big Mac in the United States costs $5.69 whereas that same Big Mac costs $3.01 in Vietnam. Which begs the question, should a company in Vietnam be subject to the same price for a font as a company in the United States?

This question becomes increasingly more complicated as you consider the internet and the ease of globalization, but if you care for my opinionated answer, I would say no—it’s not fair.

When Counter-Forms launched in 2023, I deeply admired the incorporation of the PPP into their check out process. Prior to Counter-Forms, Flavia Zimbardi had been offering “Discounts for Customers from Less Advanced Economies” which I had also admired. While Flavia’s approach is a bit simpler than the PPP approach, I have chosen to list her foundry under those offering PPP pricing.

Foundries and designers love the concept of value based pricing when it can make them more money, but will they share that same sentiment when it comes to class solidarity and economic fairness?

Licensing model(s)

In recent years, a fork has appeared in the path of font licensing models. Traditionally, license types have been separate: Desktop, Web, App, Broadcasting, etc. And users purchased only what they needed.

Today, around 30% of foundries featured in the directory take a different approach. Rather than à la carte, these foundries are offering bundled licenses which tend to cover Desktop, Web, and App by default.

While I can’t speak on behalf of why foundries choose either approach, the newer bundled model often stems from the increasingly blurred line between each of these mediums that the traditional, separate licensing models used to depend on.

What distinguishes a website from an app if they are built using the same engine? What if the design software you are using to design a book is actually just a website? Is YouTube or TikTok considered social media or broadcasting? Should a viral video online be treated the same as an indie or even a feature length film?

While the bundled approach attempts to bring simplicity in being more reflective of the fluidity of mediums, the separate approach brings a sense of granularity and control. Each licensing model has its pros and cons. In fact, I find myself oscillating between these two models depending on the type of client or project I am working on.

Beyond these two models, open-source and closed-source models are also documented throughout the directory.

• Bundled

  Indicates that the foundry bundles multiple license types into one. For example, Desktop, Web, and App.

• Closed-Source

  Indicates that the foundry offers fonts that are free to use, but does not necessarily permit modifications or redistribution.

• Open-Source

  Indicates that the foundry offers open-source fonts. These fonts typically adhere to the SIL Open Font License which makes them free to use, share, and modify.

• Separate

  Indicates that the foundry separates their licensing into individual use cases allowing customers to purchase licensing à la carte.

General metric(s)

The introduction of the bundled license model posed a new problem: how do you measure it? What metric(s) are used?

Many foundries adopting this approach rely on company size as the primary metric for determining licensing cost. It is argued that the size of a company is more reflective of, well, their size. And under a value-based pricing model, size is utilized as a base measurement for success or potential derived value.

In an attempt to be even more reflective of the licensee’s financial status, a few foundries also utilize revenue as the general metric as opposed to the company size.

On the other hand, some foundries—despite bundling different license types together—still rely on the more traditional metrics. They often group these metrics into various sizes which cover just a couple of users, .

[create example here]

Mixed metrics like the example above is my least favorite approach because it makes a lot of assumptions. It assumes the number of desktop users, a website’s monthly traffic, and the number of app downloads are all directly proportional to one another.

While I mentioned the lines are increasingly more blurred between then, these metrics are all quite different and not intrinsically tied to one another in such a way that these tiered licensing models imply.

The concept of having to upgrade your desktop license because your website traffic has increased is hard for a client to grasp. So it often feels like the foundry is punishing the user for being more successful in one metric rather than giving them a deal.

When foundries use a general metric that is related to traditional desktop, web, or app licenses, I have opted to repeat those metrics under their respective columns for added search-ability.

• Company Size

  Akin to an enterprise license, company size ties the license to the size of the licensee—typically measured as the number of employees—regardless of how many people will actually use and/or install the fonts.

• (Number of) Devices

  Based on the number of devices the fonts will be installed on. Some foundries refer to these as computers, others as workstations.

  But are tablets and phones considered computers? Perhaps, but the language isn’t clear. And what is a workstation exactly? Does that include multiple devices? Once again, it is unclear. So I have opted to consolidate all these terms under “Devices.”

  As someone with multiple computers and tablets in different locations, I do not like this licensing metric.

• Duration

  Ties the license to a time period, often measured in years.

  Most desktop licenses are perpetual meaning you only have to pay for it once, however, some foundries are trying to coax you into a subscription based licensing model.

  This more so makes sense for small one-off projects or time specific campaigns for large corporations.

• Revenue

  Similar to the company size metric, this metric ties the license to the annual revenue of the licensee and likely behaves as an enterprise style license.

• Social Audience

  Indicates that the foundry measures your social audience size (typically the total number of followers across all social platforms) to determine pricing.

• Users

  Based on the number of users that will need to install, access or otherwise use the fonts.

  If I am looking for a more traditional licensing metric, this is my preferred choice as it is less restrictive as “Devices,” and is generally more intuitive.

Desktop metric(s)

• Company size

  Akin to an enterprise license, company size ties the license to the size of the licensee—typically measured as the number of employees—regardless of how many people will actually use and/or install the fonts. See more info in the general metrics above.

• (Number of) Devices

  Based on the number of devices the fonts will be installed on. Some foundries refer to these as computers, others as workstations.

  But are tablets and phones considered computers? Perhaps, but the language isn’t clear. And what is a workstation exactly? Does that include multiple devices? Once again, it is unclear. So I have opted to consolidate all these terms under “Devices.”

  As someone with multiple computers and tablets in different locations, I do not like this licensing metric.

• Duration

  Ties the license to a time period, often measured in years.

  Most desktop licenses are perpetual meaning you only have to pay for it once, however, some foundries are trying to coax you into a subscription based licensing model.

  This more so makes sense for small one-off projects or time specific campaigns for large corporations.

• Location

  This can mean one of several things. One, it means the licensed users have to all be in the same location—in some cases referring to the same office (yes, quite antiquated). Or two, location is referenced more broadly as a geographic location and licensing is tied to the number of country(s) the licensee is operating in.

  Generally I avoid this sort of license metric when possible.

• Print quantity

  Indicates that the foundry has limitations on the number of printed units you may produce using the fonts. This typically will not be listed as an actual metric during the checkout process, but rather listed as a clause, restriction or limitation within the EULA. Many foundries have done away with this approach, but keep an eye out for it.

• Social audience

  Indicates that the foundry measures your social audience size (typically the total number of followers across all social platforms) to determine pricing.

• Users

  Based on the number of users that will need to install, access or otherwise use the fonts.

  If I am looking for a more traditional licensing metric, this is my preferred choice as it is less restrictive as “Devices,” and is generally more intuitive.

Web Metric(s)

• Company size

  Akin to an enterprise license, company size ties the license to the size of the licensee—typically measured as the number of employees—regardless of how many people will actually use and/or install the fonts. See more info in the general metrics above.

• Devices

  This is likely the bi-product of devices being used as a general metric.

• Duration

  Ties the license to a time period, often measured in years. A subscription if you will.

• Monthly traffic

  Admittedly, this is an oversimplification. It’s a flattening of several metrics into one. The two prevailing metrics are monthly page views and monthly visitors.

  Websites inherently receive significantly more page views than visitors because visitors often have the ability to view more than one page. Many foundries account for this when setting their default metric tiers, but that isn’t always the case. So keep your eyes peeled.

  Then these metrics each include a variant often preceded by the term “unique.”

  • Monthly page views
  • Unique monthly page views
  • Monthly visitors
  • Unique monthly visitors

  Whether it is page views or visitors, always make sure the license is referring to unique metrics. Let’s imagine I view your website 1 million times or instead 1 million different people view your website, should the pricing be the same? Probably not.

  I chose to flatten all of these for two reasons: One, I don’t like this metric type (see why in the self-hosted webfonts & web tracking section). Two, most foundries do a bad job of clearly indicating what type of tracking they require. Checkout processes often omit the metric portion entirely and just display numbers like “10k,” forcing customers to dig through a EULA for more clarity. Even worse, foundries may list conflicting information—stating monthly visitors during checkout but defining monthly page views in their EULA.

• Per website

  Simple and straight forward. My preferred approach.

• Social Audience

  Indicates that the foundry measures your social audience size (typically the total number of followers across all social platforms) to determine pricing. This is likely the bi-product of social audience being used as a general metric. In either case, it is strange.

• Users

  This is likely the bi-product of users being used as a general metric. Admittedly, this is a confusing metric for web licensing and should not be confused with visitors (monthly traffic).

App Metric(s)

• Company size

  Akin to an enterprise license, company size ties the license to the size of the licensee—typically measured as the number of employees—regardless of how many people will actually use and/or install the fonts. See more info in the general metrics above.

• Devices for development

  This is a very rare metric, and was likely coined by Grilli Type. They write, “This license… is tied to the number of computers used to design and develop your apps. It has no relation to the number of downloads or users after the release.”

• Downloads

  Indicates that the license is tied to the total number of downloads the app receives.

• Duration

  Ties the license to a time period, often measured in years. A subscription if you will.

• Monthly downloads

  Based on the monthly number of downloads an app receives.

  What if a user downloads the app but doesn’t make an account? What if a user deletes the app and then redownloads it later? How downloads are measured has always confused me.

• Monthly users

  Based on the app’s monthly number of users. Some foundries specifically state active users so licensees aren’t necessarily paying for inactive seats.

• Monthly views

  Based on the app’s monthly traffic. This approach adds a lot of ambiguity in my eyes.

• Per app

  Simple and straight forward.

• Per OS

  Requires a license for every operating system the app is developed for.

  I’ve never understood this approach to app licensing. Developing the same app but for two different types of phones or computers requires separate licensing? Why?

• Price

  This metric is likely defunct at this point. One foundry previously tied their app metric to the retail price of the app itself.

• Unlimited

  Currently only offered by Just Another Foundry, this approach is very generous to say the least. I know it sounds too good to be true, but they specifically state “the number of published apps or app downloads is not limited. All our font licenses are perpetual. The fee is one-off, without any recurring payments.”

• Users

  Not to be confused with users as expected in a desktop license. Users in this case refers to the total number of users the app experiences.

• Yearly downloads

  Based on the number of annual downloads. See monthly downloads for my concerns.

Self-hosted webfonts

There are two primary types of webfont licenses: self-hosted and hosted. When I reference webfonts throughout the directory, I am almost always referring to self-hosted webfonts.

What’s the difference? With hosted webfonts, you never receive the actual font files, instead those files are hosted on a remote network of servers controlled by the foundry which are then served on your website through a snippet of code. Self hosted webfonts allows you to upload the fonts to your website’s server yourself in the same way you host any other assets for your website.

Hosted webfonts use the facade of ease of implementation to lure customers into a landlord-tenant agreement to which no additional services are provided—just annual fees to serve the fonts on your website and surveil your visitors.

But what happens when the foundry is bought out or eventually dissolves? Years of annual rental fees amount to nothing, and customers are effectively evicted.

Yet self-hosting is equally easy, it provides customers with a sense of autonomy and control, all while providing long term protection.

There are some foundries and distributors that offer both options, however, they typically push their hosted option as the primary approach and drastically inflate the pricing of self-hosted webfonts. In these cases, I do not mark them as having self-hosted fonts available.

Take Type Network for example. While self-hosted webfonts are technically available through them, their default approach is through their hosted option while the self-hosted option is astronomically 20x the price.

Web tracking required

I already know this is going to be particularly controversial amongst foundries, but the traditional metric of traffic based licensing is both obsolete and, for lack of a better term, weird. Foundries employing this metric are effectively requiring web tracking.

In an age of privacy rights (or lack thereof) on the internet, requiring all of your customers to track their visitors is, as I said before, weird, but if I am being honest, also unethical.

I know what you might be saying. “But tracking can be done anonymously!” And you are right. But anonymous tracking is still tracking. And let’s be honest, the lowest barrier of entry for tracking visitors is often through analytic services that are by default invasive and not anonymous.

Traffic based licensing also becomes a pseudo subscription that isn’t tied to any particular time frame, and has to be self monitored and reported—otherwise putting the customer at risk of litigation.

Let’s stop normalizing surveillance. Just because you can track and measure viewers, does that mean you should?

Designer covered by client license

Please note, this is the newest addition to the directory, and thus the most unfinished.

This indicates whether a foundry allows the designer/studio to use the fonts on behalf of the client or if they need to purchase their own separate license.

The traditional method of font licensing adheres to the latter, where anyone that needs to install or use the fonts needs their own license.

Why would this new approach even surface? I think this largely stems from the shift in value based pricing we are seeing in newer bundled license models and the introduction of company-size metrics. Where the crux of licensing moves away from the end-user, the people installing the fonts, and instead focuses more on the end beneficiary, the brands and businesses benefiting from the fonts.

Logo usage included

Within the directory, this indicates that logo usage is (likely) included in the desktop license. Most foundries (about 87%) follow this approach.

The remaining 13% require additional licensing for logo usage which typically requires a custom quote. (I personally don’t like this.)

The thing with non-exclusive licensable fonts is that anyone can use them. Your brand can use a font, but so can a different brand, and another brand, and another brand, and so on. It is this non-exclusivity that makes fonts accessible and affordable.

If the price is being inflated for logo use, one might assume that would come with some added protections or exclusivity but it doesn’t. Admittedly, one could argue that increased usage and high profile exposure of a font in use could damper or diminish the potential returns for a foundry if less brands are then inclined to use it, but the prevalence of fonts like Gotham, Canela or Ogg tell me that’s not necessarily the case.

Don’t worry, I am not free from my own criticism. Tipofili, another foundry I am a partner at, requires an additional license for logo usage. I recognize the hypocrisy of my own statements. But as one of three partners, I also respect their choice and request to separate logo licensing—even if I don’t like it.

Social media usage included

Where the fuck did this license type come from?

It used to be that the desktop license allowed you to install the fonts on your computer to create raster graphics. Graphics you could upload onto your website. Graphics you could print out as a flyer and hang in your local laundromat. Graphics you could upload to social media.

While some foundries are trying to consolidate licensing, others it seems are trending towards hyper granularity and itemizing every possible use case.

Modifications allowed

While most type foundries permit users to modify fonts after they have been outlined, 98% of foundries do not allow users to modify the software itself (which is what I am speaking to in the directory).

Genuine question though: why?

If a user wants to subset a font to allow for faster load times on their website, why aren’t they allowed to? If a font is missing a few characters to support a user’s language, why can’t they simply add them? If a Vietnamese graphic designer needs to adjust the vertical metrics of a font to prevent their letters from being clipped, why can’t they?

Withholding the right to modify, customize or extend a font is a practice reflective of the monopolistic tech giants responsible for the enshittification of the products we interact with daily.

Computer companies make it impossible to upgrade your RAM or repair them yourself. Printer companies develop proprietary ink systems which allow them to artificially inflate the pricing and lock you into their ecosystem. Automakers tried to lobby against your ability to have your car repaired by an independent mechanic.

Foundries, these are not the companies you want to blindly be following in the footsteps of.

I know what you might be saying. “This all sounds like the right to repair, and isn’t that rooted in the concept of ownership? Users don’t own the fonts, they merely license them.” But maybe we’re looking at it from the wrong perspective? If one can legally jailbreak their phone under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), why can’t we jailbreak our fonts?

Rather than waiting for fonts to make their way into the exception list of DMCA, I’d like to see foundries become more forward thinking and bake the right to modify directly into their EULAs.

Listen, I’m not saying users should be able to resell or redistribute their modifications—just as you can’t sell jailbroken phones or software. But I do believe the licensee should be able to modify the software for their own use.

A note on strict limitations around modifications

There have been a few foundries I have come across over the years that do not allow users to modify the fonts even after they have been outlined. Some foundries have even gone as far as stating that even raster modification aren’t permitted, which is outrageous to me. Needless to say, I do not list these foundries on the directory.

Trial fonts

Trial fonts are typically free versions of the fonts that are strictly limited to evaluation and testing purposes only, and at times student/educational use.

As a graphic designer primarily working in branding, trial fonts are a non-negotiable for me. I will not consider a foundry’s catalog if they do not have trial fonts available by direct download or via email.

Trial font character set

Most trial fonts come with a limited characters set, reduced functionality, and sometimes no kerning, but more recently foundries have been challenging this convention by offering fully functional trial fonts.

I started documenting trial font character sets as I began to notice that limited character sets were making it increasingly difficult for me to sell through typographic palettes and concepts.

For editorial clients, seeing long running text without punctation or jarringly interrupted by another font is more confusing than it is helpful. For a tech company, it is hard to showcase data visualization when numbers are removed or currency symbols aren’t accessible.

While a limited character set won’t inhibit me from pitching a font, I am much more inclined to reach for trials with a full character set as it makes my job easier and increases the chances of selling the work through.

But my real hot take is that trial fonts solely supporting English is a form of colonialism. It signals that only English speaking users are welcome to try the fonts, and substituting accented letters for their base glyphs implies that the design of diacritics do not matter in the evaluation of a font.

I get it. Limited character sets are a means of protecting fonts against piracy. But I also get that foundries are so often caught up in “protecting” their fonts that they forget about what they are saying to their actual users.

I graduated school with $29,167 in student loan debt. While I was in school, a majority of my tuition was fortunately covered by athletic scholarship, but I still had to find a way to pay for the rest of life’s expenses: rent, groceries, school supplies, books, computer, etc. I often did this by freelancing outside of my studies.

Student discounts played an integral role in not only helping me pay my way through school but to simply survive. To eat food. To pay my rent.

This is why documenting student discounts offered by foundries is extremely important to me. And why I have started also documenting the type of license foundries supply students. Because I started noticing that many foundries are putting on a facade. They act as though they care about students but then limit their licenses to non-commercial uses or limit the character sets.

How are students expected to learn typography with fonts that are missing punctation or OpenType features?

The irony is, foundries often complain that designers don’t know how to use OpenType features, but they also tend to treat student fonts the same as trial fonts which typically don’t have any OpenType features. How are future professionals going to learn about OpenType Features?

Student discounts which are limited to non-commercial uses are symbolic gestures at best, and, at worst, active contributors to the student debt crisis.

For foundries

If you offer student discounts, make that information publicly accessible. The directory will only document foundries whose websites explicitly state that they offer student discounts and how students can receive it.

For students

Don’t take this as the end all be all. Every foundry handles student discounts and licensing differently. And nowadays, some foundries are making student discounts obsolete. See the “Designer covered by client license” section. So while filtering by foundries who offer student discounts can be helpful, don’t stop there. Do your own research and don’t be afraid to get in touch with foundries. From my experience, they are run by incredibly kind people and want to help you out.

Adobe Fonts

I have a very conflicted relationship with Adobe Fonts. I am generally weary of subscription based services, and fonts as a service is particularly weird to me. That being said, I also recognize how useful it can be especially for students. And from a foundry perspective, I also recognize how much financial stability it can provide.

But it is also the success and convenience of this sort of subscription that worries me. The compensation rate foundries receive from such a service will only go down from here. And these things, more often than not, are trojan horses for price fixing, questionable terms and conditions, and vendor lock-in.

All of this is to say, it is very likely that I may remove Adobe Fonts data from the directory later down the road.

Fontstand

“Fontstand is a font discovery and streaming service that lets you try and use high-quality fonts on all platforms.”

Fontstand let’s you try fonts for free, rent fonts by the month, or subscribe to a foundry’s catalog. I also really appreciate the rent to own model which is far less exploitative than subscription models which have been popping up.

And they recently announced that it is becoming a co-op meaning it will be cooperative owned and governed by independent type foundries. Which is very exciting!

Future Fonts

As they so eloquently put it, “Future Fonts is a platform for experimental, high-quality fonts in progress. We feature emerging type designers, and well-established foundries worldwide. You get access to the latest designs at a fraction of their final price, with free updates as they grow, and type designers control the way their fonts are developed and licensed.”

Fonts in Use

Per their about page, “Fonts In Use is a public archive of typography indexed by typeface, format, industry, and period. Supported by examples contributed by the public, we document and examine graphic design with the goal of improving typographic literacy and appreciation. Designers use our site for project research, type selection and pairing, and discovering new ways to choose and use fonts.”

I am a big fan of Fonts in Use. Not only is their site incredibly useful, but it is run by a group of very thoughtful and kind individuals. They are currently helping me populate FIU links for all of the foundries featured on the directory.

RSS

RSS is essentially decentralized social media. It is a standardized, computer-readable format that allows users to subscribe to websites, receive updates, and read content.

Before the dawn of siloed social platforms, paywalled journalism, and newsletters riddled with trackers, RSS was one of the primary ways of subscribing to content. It was free. It was easy. And it was done on your own terms.

But this utopia of only exists if websites provide an RSS feed. Which, unfortunately, most do not. Those that do tend to link it to their blog or their newsletter which can usually be found by adding /feed or /feed.xml to their URL.

But I have a new proposal.

What if there were a standardized approach to receiving font updates and learning about new releases? What if instead of /feed.xml, there was /fonts.xml? Just imagine being able to subscribe to a release feed without the noise and baggage of other social platforms. No algorithms. No ads. Just fonts.

Instagram, Twitter, and Mastodon

These are all fairly self explanatory. I began tracking Instagram and Twitter information back in 2020 so they are the most fleshed out, whereas Mastodon was a fairly new addition and thus the most unfinished.

Fonts in use recently published a very thoughtful article about their departure from problematic platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, which has me contemplating how much of a spine do I actually have. Time will tell!

I have read a lot of EULAs and I have read a lot of FAQs. Sometimes there are red flags; sometimes there is inconsistent information. I try to flag these in the notes when it feels applicable. But it’s not only bad stuff in the notes. I also make note of positive experiences!

In both cases, not everything is captured. And admittedly, there isn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason as to when certain things are documented or not. So make of this what you will.

As I have mentioned many times, the directory is flawed and—thanks to the nature of the internet—perpetually out of date. I do my best to keep my finger on the pulse of the industry, but I am not actively monitoring every single foundry. All information is provided in good faith, and all corrections and updates are appreciated.

For new submissions, please use the submission form. For updates/edits to an existing listed foundry, please email me directly: matthew@morningtype.com