B4Print.com

Operating Systems => Fonts => Topic started by: Slappy on January 21, 2014, 05:15:56 PM

Poll
Question: Has your shop ever bought fonts for a job that weren't supplied?
Option 1: Yes, we ate the cost of the fonts to get the work. votes: 1
Option 2: Yes, but we charged the client for the add'l cost. votes: 4
Option 3: No, we insisted on getting them from the client. And did. votes: 5
Option 4: No, we refused to buy them & let the job go rather than lose money votes: 0
Title: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Slappy on January 21, 2014, 05:15:56 PM
This came up today as I wandered into the middle of a webinar my Wife was sitting in on from Extensis. I think it was mostly about internal policing of font licensing within an agency/corporate environment, but I overheard the presenter say that designers should really be requiring their end vendors (printers in this case) to buy the fonts needed to produce the job awarded. RIiiiight.

Of course I said no shop I've ever worked for or heard of would foot the bill for fonts that should be included form the client. What say you?
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Joe on January 21, 2014, 05:37:56 PM
If we would have to buy them the client would be charged. So either the client can buy them twice or go somewhere else.
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Diddler on January 21, 2014, 05:44:31 PM
Simple policy around here, we only accept Press Ready PDFs no need to worry about fonts.
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Joe on January 21, 2014, 06:39:09 PM
About 99% that way here too.
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Slappy on January 21, 2014, 07:27:12 PM
Ahhhh, I totally forgot the "PDF Submission ONLY!" option on the Poll. Duh.  :banghead:

Thanks guys, it really is the most ridiculous thing for Extensis to promote but I guess they're so out of touch, why would they think anything differently?
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: frailer on January 21, 2014, 07:42:44 PM
Never really become an issue here, though I always had the feeling that there was an implied notion that it was never 100% resolved as fully legal. The drift to PDF supply means it's faded.
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Joe on January 21, 2014, 07:50:05 PM
I think technically-legally (new hyphenated word invented by me) designers are not supposed to send fonts to printers but the practice has always been tolerated.

For some reason Extensis always reminds me of Quark...so out of touch with reality you kind of have to feel a bit sorry for them. For about 1/10th of a second anyway.
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: frailer on January 21, 2014, 08:00:41 PM
Yeah... Extensis... What the ....?     :shrug:
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: StudioMonkey on January 22, 2014, 08:02:08 AM
Legally the Printers should buy any fonts they need.  If the designer supplies them he is breaking his EULA (unless they're open source etc.).  This is good news for the font suppliers, who get to sell multiple copies of the same font for the same job. 

This situation did not last long before people were looking for a way round it.  What printers are supposed to do is buy the fonts and bill the designer or client for them.  This got complicated very quickly when some clients were billed separately by the designer and the printer and wondered why they were paying for the same fonts twice.

In the end most printers insisted that all fonts be included with any artwork sent.  Some designers were savvy enough to turn all fonts to outlines, but with a text heavy job this made for a huge postscript file.

Now we have PDFs which can embed the font information (although not all fonts can be embedded) and everybody is happy.

Or as happy as they ever get.
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Farabomb on January 22, 2014, 09:52:07 AM
It's always get the font or use one from our library and the customer is on the hook for any reflow. With PDFs that almost never happens but some customers still send natives for some reason.

With the ability to load fonts directly in CS what the hell is extensis selling? I unloaded suckcase years ago.
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: DCurry on January 22, 2014, 09:52:38 AM
I thought the more recent EULAs stated that the designer could pass the font along to produce the job, but that the vendor could only use them for that specific job and then had to trash the fonts from the system?
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Possum on January 22, 2014, 10:17:36 AM
Like that's going to happen. Oops, I forgot, so now we have a new font.
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Slappy on January 22, 2014, 10:34:09 AM
Quote from: DCurry on January 22, 2014, 09:52:38 AMI thought the more recent EULAs stated that the designer could pass the font along to produce the job, but that the vendor could only use them for that specific job and then had to trash the fonts from the system?
That's always been my understanding too, although I honestly don't know if it's factual from the EULAs floating around or just the way we've always done things. Read up on those EULAs & get back to me, wouldya?  :laugh:
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: Farabomb on January 22, 2014, 10:43:34 AM
The cure for cancer could be in a EULA and nobody would find it.
Title: Re: Purchasing fonts for a job
Post by: David on January 22, 2014, 10:45:43 AM
fonts are for trids...