When you're shopping for fonts, it pays to look beneath the surface. Here's how to buy a boffo Bodoni.
Kathleen Tinkel
FONTS SEEM SIMPLE compared to other kinds of software. A whole family of typefaces can fit on one floppy disk, and once a font is available to your system, it sits there unobtrusively, waiting to be called into service. Viewed that way, a font is simple. But as so often in real life, buying fonts isn't simple at all.
Face Value
Before you can buy a font, you need to make several choices, either deliberately or incidentally. The first is the choice of the typeface -- the design -- as distinct from the font, which, in the case of Mac-software terminology, is a specific product based on the type design. You'll have more control over quality if you begin by selecting the typeface and then try to locate a font that most closely replicates that design. Many fonts don't exactly live up to their typographic namesakes.
Almost everyone needs text as well as display typefaces. Good text faces, used for running copy, are legible and easy to read, offering no distraction or impediment to the reader -- transparent, to use the typographer's term. You can use text faces at any size, but 9- to 13-point, the size range for which text faces are usually designed, works best. Purchasing text families should be considered an investment; like good suits, they can be mainstays of your type wardrobe for many years. A text family may include dozens of styles (bold, italic, and possibly many others), so it can be expensive. But you should be able to set any kind of text with no more than half a dozen text families, and you can acquire them one at a time.
In contrast to text faces, display faces are meant to be seen. Some resemble the text faces they're designed to complement; others may be ornamental or wild and crazy. Display types are meant to be used at larger sizes -- certainly no smaller than 14-point. Using them at standard text sizes may result in illegible characters and cramped spacing. Compared to text fonts, display fonts -- many of which have reduced character sets (often only capital letters) -- are easier to produce, and there are hundreds of new ones every year.
Picking the Right Font
There can be several fonts for any type design -- in fact, some popular faces may be available in a dozen different packages that vary only in details. Depending on what your design intention is, some of those details may steer you toward one font rather than another.
Fonts vary in visual quality, both overall and in terms of particular functions -- some look better at low resolution, for example; others may be superb typographically but hard to read on-screen. Some fonts are simply badly made, with technical defects that can cause output problems, particularly if you are sending files to older imagesetters.
Few perfect fonts exist, but you can usually find one that suits the work you need to do. Here are some factors to consider:
Character Set. Type designs typically include 400 characters or more, but because a font made for desktop systems can have no more than 256 characters, font manufacturers are forced to eliminate some characters. Many fonts exclude such niceties as old-style figures, true-cut small caps, and ligatures. Most do not include alternate characters (such as those in Avant Garde and the swashes in Bookman and Caslon). And standard fonts rarely include ornaments that are sometimes part of the original type design. Sometimes you can buy supplemental Expert, Alternate, or Ornament fonts, however, and their availability may be a factor in your buying decisions.
The Font Name Game. Font packages bearing labels of different vendors may in fact contain identical fonts -- Adobe, Agfa, Linotype-Hell, and Monotype license type designs from one another and resell each other's fonts. As a rule, Adobe reworks fonts to make them conform to its in-house standards. The other foundries may sell their own versions as well as the Adobe fonts, which can get confusing. If you need imagesetter compatibility, you may have to buy the Adobe font no matter which vendor you buy from. Always confirm that the output service has the font identical to the one you've used, before sending files for output.
The Typeface Name Game. Don't judge a font by its name: Many typefaces that share a family name are not actually the same. For example, there are at least two dozen type families with Garamond in their name available in PostScript format for the Mac today. But some of these -- including the popular ITC Garamond -- aren't even based on Claude Garamond's original designs. Meanwhile, there are true Garamond-based designs, including Sabon, that bear a different name. For this reason, select typefaces from specimen books by specific name -- for example, Stempel Garamond or Bauer Bodoni -- and then choose a good font for that design.
Quality. Like other manufactured products, fonts can exhibit certain flaws. Some are carelessly drawn, as evidenced by characters that lack the type design's distinguishing elements -- inaccurate line weights, poorly drawn serifs, or oversimplified features (a crossbar that was designed to curve slightly is rendered as a straight line, for example). Autotraced (or ineptly drawn) characters may have too many control points (mathematical data points that tell the computer how to draw each letter). Badly made fonts may display visual defects (such as rippled edges) at large sizes, or they could conceivably overload the RIP in files destined for imagesetter output, although such problems have decreased recently as font-creation software and PostScript RIPs have improved. Bad spacing is another common symptom of poor quality often found in unauthorized copies -- fonts that are sold as being "similar to" a well-known typeface.
When you're shopping, look carefully at provided type specimens for evidence of flaws. It's also a good idea to find out if the vendor you're buying from offers a money-back guarantee if the product is faulty.
Where to Buy Fonts
Once upon a time, you could buy fonts at your local computer shop or by phone (for overnight delivery) from mail-order discounters. But those days are gone. These days, font buying is strictly a high-tech proposition.
Encrypted CD-ROMs. For virtually instant gratification and the lowest regular prices, buy fonts from CD-ROMs by ordering unlocking codes by fax (see "Dialing for Dingbats, June '95, page 95). All the larger and some smaller manufacturers sell their fonts this way. (In fact, Adobe sells some of its font library only from its Type On Call CD-ROM.) Since Agfa, Linotype-Hell, and Monotype each offer the Adobe library as well as their own, it's a good idea to have more than one CD-ROM package and to shop around a little before ordering. The CD-ROMs are inexpensive or free (Adobe bundles Type On Call with all of its major software, for example); when you buy a CD-ROM, you usually get to unlock some fonts for free or receive a discount toward your first purchase. Adobe's unlocking service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and some of the other vendors are considering extending their hours to match.
Specialty Font Retailers. A small industry in selling fonts from many makers has developed. The largest sources are FontHaus, FontShop, and Precision Type. Besides taking orders over the phone or by fax, these firms can usually identify by fax any typefaces you've found. Most of these places sell many competitive brands, so make sure you're ordering exactly the font you need. Since identical fonts may be packaged under different labels, inquire directly about any price advantages that may be available. Many of these companies are font manufacturers as well as resellers, and most have catalogs or other information that will help you specify the fonts you want to buy.
Commercial Fonts Online. A few online services accept a credit card and let you download commercial fonts. DTP OnLine, on CompuServe, has the full Adobe and Monotype libraries and is working on the full Treacyfaces/Headliners library; Design OnLine has fonts from several of the smaller design companies, including Alphabets*Inc. Emigre sells directly from its own Now Serving BBS. This is very likely the way we'll all buy fonts in the future, since it solves distribution problems for manufacturers as well as for users.
Unlocked CD-ROMs. It's difficult to recommend most of the commercial CD-ROM collections of unlocked fonts (as opposed to pay-as-you-go CD-ROMs). Moreover, most of these CD-ROM collections include only display fonts. These discs are also too often filled with hastily made knockoffs of commercial fonts, a mishmash of shareware fonts (often being distributed without permission), and other fonts of dubious quality or attribution. This isn't always the case -- for example, Bitstream's unlocked CD-ROMs offer beautifully drawn fonts, although some are unlicensed.
There's another reason to avoid the large CD-ROM collections: Getting a huge influx of fonts all at once, most of them with unfamiliar names, is confusing. The best way to build a type library is to purchase a family or two at a time and then use each family extensively until you have a good feel for its strengths and weaknesses.
There's Always Shareware. Decent shareware fonts were once a rarity, but I've been surprised recently at the high quality of some shareware display fonts. All the online services have libraries of shareware fonts. It's a resource that's worth exploring as the business of buying and selling fonts moves to the online world.
Kathleen Tinkel writes regularly about fonts, graphic design, and prepress.
Just My Type
Most of the popular text faces in use today -- including the many inspired by or named after such printing pioneers as John Baskerville, Giambattista Bodoni, William Caslon, and Claude Garamond -- have their roots in early typefaces created in the first couple of centuries after Gutenberg. We still use these basic type designs, which arose as printing developed. Most of these designs have evolved considerably over the centuries, as they've been reinterpreted for different eras and typesetting technologies. Choosing can be difficult -- just as thousands of people claim to have descended from the 200 people who came to America on the Mayflower, the few early type designs have tens of thousands of descendants.
Your text-type library probably includes the usual suspects -- Bodoni, Garamond -- but you may have overlooked these solid citizens. Here are a few of my recommendations for text type, plus a few display fonts that have caught my eye recently.
Display Fonts
Text Fonts
Where to Buy Fonts
Major Foundries
Adobe Systems
Mountain View, CA
800-294-1724
415-961-4400
206-628-5737 (fax)
http://www.adobe.com/
Agfa
Wilmington, MA
U.S.: 800-424-8973
508-658-5600
508-657-8268 (fax)
Canada: 800-387-9532
416-241-5409 (fax)
Bitstream
Cambridge, MA
800-522-3668
617-497-6222
617-354-7954 (fax)
ITC (International Typeface Corp.) and Letraset
New York, NY
800-343-8973
201-845-6100
201-845-4708 (fax)
Linotype-Hell
Hauppauge, NY
800-799-4922
516-434-2700
516-434-2706 (fax)
Monotype Typography
Chicago, IL
800-666-6897
312-855-1440
312-855-9475 (fax)
A Few Independents
Alphabets*Inc.
Evanston, IL
800-326-8973
708-328-2733
708-328-1922 (fax)
Design OnLine: http://www.dol.com/fontsonline/
Carter & Cone Type
Cambridge, MA
800-952-2129
617-576-0398
617-354-4146 (fax)
Emigre
Sacramento, CA
800-944-9021
916-451-4344
916-451-4531 (fax)
Now Serving BBS: 916-451-2853; http://www.emigre.com/
The Font Bureau
Boston, MA
617-423-8770
617-423-8771 (fax)
Hoefler Type Foundry
New York, NY
212-777-6640
212-777-6684 (fax)
House Industries
Wilmington, DE
800-888-4390
302-888-1218
302-888-1650 (fax)
Patricia Lillie
(shareware, $10)
71762.54 compuserve.com
David Rakowski
(freeware)
Optional voluntary contribution to Columbia Composers, Columbia University
CompuServe: DTP Forum
Stone Type Foundry
Palo Alto, CA
800-557-8663
415-324-1870
415-324-1783 (fax)
[T-26]
Chicago, IL
312-670-8973
312-649-0376 (fax)
Treacyfaces/Headliners
West Haven, CT
800-800-6805
203-389-7037
203-389-7039 (fax)
Brian Willson/Three Islands Press
(shareware, $10)
76662.2364 compuserve.com
Font Resellers
DTP OnLine
CompuServe: GO DTPONL Sales; GO DTPAVEN Support/Information
