6 ms·

Adobe acquires Typekit

179 points by jcsalterego 15y ago

flixic 15y ago
I have some conflicted feelings. On one hand, I'm happy for Typekit team, if everything turns out the way they hope. Possible integration with Photoshop / DreamWeaver could help bring better fonts to the web, help them grow, invite more type foundries, and so on. On the other hand, Adobe quite often ruin things they acquire, and that would be just terrible, because Typekit was by far the best service for web fonts. Google fonts are quite crappy, FontDeck doesn't have the best foundries, and Fonts.com is expensive, and their fonts are less optimized for the web. So here's to the bright future of Typekit, in which the service remains great and inexpensive.
- masnick 15y ago
  I agree with the parent...when I saw this headline, I immediately thought of this blog: http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/ http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/.
- markbao 15y ago
  Fonts.com has an excellent webfonts offering which includes name-brand fonts like Frutiger, Helvetica Neue, Avenir, and others.
  - flixic 15y ago
    Yes, but they are more than 4 times as expensive, and most of their fonts are not optimized for the web (unlike Typekit's).
- briandear 15y ago
  Let's hope so. I would like Typekit to be integrated better with Adobe products, but not at the expense of the core Typekit service.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
markbao 15y ago
I liked Typekit. I hope Adobe won't run it into the ground, like the rest of the companies they've acquired.
- davidedicillo 15y ago
  I agree. And hopefully won't require some ugly software in order to use it.
  - reustle 15y ago
    Don't worry, it will seamlessly work. They're just going to push out a change via the hosted JS that injects flash elements to display the fonts.
    - wgx 15y ago
      And requires the install of Adobe AIR.
      - bsergean 15y ago
        I hope you're having a great time bashing on Adobe. I think I was flagged as a bad boy once because I was telling bad things on Apple, it's funny I don't think this will ever happen if you bash Adobe, you must win karma points or whatever it's called if you do that.
- protomyth 15y ago
  To be fair (and I have a tough time of it with Adobe), a lot of their suite was acquired. They seem to be able to transition products fairly well for a large company.
  - smackfu 15y ago
    Yeah, much of what is now synonymous with the Adobe brand name is from the acquisition of Macromedia.
mtgentry 15y ago
I love Typekit. I think Adobe knows better than to mess with the product itself. However the pricing model is pretty low by Adobe standards. I hope that doesn't change.
reustle 15y ago
Oh no.
- jfb 15y ago
  This was my reaction, and the reaction of three people who walked past my desk and saw the announcement. Good for the Typekit guys, and thanks for the service, but my faith in Adobe not balling things up is shaky.
hsmyers 15y ago
Price will increase, service will decrease. I'm happy for those at Typekit who cashed out, too bad for the users...
citricsquid 15y ago
Just got the $49.99/year plan, I've been considering it and I figure if Adobe are going to raise prices they'll hopefully let older customers stick to their original pricing... so maybe I got a good deal.
krosaen 15y ago
From the email I just got (I'm a paying customer): """ If you’re one of our customers, this announcement means things will only get better. Typekit will remain a standalone product, as well as become a vital part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Our team will stay together, and we’re excited to start working on even easier ways to integrate web fonts into your workflow. """ They're saying all the right things: standalone product, team staying together, etc, sure hope so.
- huhtenberg 15y ago
  > even easier ways to integrate Good, a pure CSS then. Like all other font services these days.
dasil003 15y ago
Maybe if the chorus rises loud enough, Adobe management will get a clue and not ruin Typekit.
czottmann 15y ago
I, for one, am looking forward to Adobe Air-powered Typekit Installation packages containing native OSX installers that spit out HTML snippets.
peterjmag 15y ago
Typekit is an excellent service for the price, but the main reason I've remained a committed customer and evangelist is their constant drive to improve. I love that they've worked so hard to improve font rendering on Windows (which I'm sure is a huge pain in the ass) and that they encourage foundries to hint their fonts (which improves rendering for everyone). I hope that this acquisition won't hinder that kind of initiative.
sambeau 15y ago
Now that Adobe has bought Typekit I anticipate an HTML5 version of Adobe Bridge® bundled with Adobe® Typekit® Master Collection® 6.0…
vilius 15y ago
It's interesting to see Typekit guys cashing out. I bet the price was pretty solid. I remember, when I first tried their service in 2009, the first impression was wow, it works!. Not only in technological aspect. It felt that the Startup worked. The timing and niche instantly became to be "naturally clear". Two years passed and we see here a nice cash out. Meanwhile: let's step up and do something wow, it works. Stripe has started doing it in 2011. And probably many more.
petercooper 15y ago
If you're in the UK (or, heck, outside of the US), start saving up for when the standard Adobe currency conversion rates of $1 = £2 come into action ;-)
Silhouette 15y ago
Typekit is a funny concept to me. While I can respect and admire their ability to build a successful company, I think the blog post shows just how rose-tinted are the spectacles worn by these font services: Second, we could innovate on the business side as well. We could sell fonts as a service, and use a subscription model to eliminate Byzantine licensing and usage issues. I wonder how much money they would have made if they'd sold fonts with a simple, one-term commercial licence fee, just like stock photography, music, icons, etc. I know there's no way I could ever use their services with any of the clients I've had, because you simply can't factor in an ongoing cost that is unrestricted and controlled by a third party when giving a fixed price quote for most clients. However, I've spent significant amounts of my own and various companies' money to buy good quality fonts for other uses, and would surely have done so for web fonts as well if anyone was willing to take my money on that basis. Few sites used web fonts when we got started; today, new sites seldom launch without them. Typekit now serves nearly three billion fonts per month on over one million different sites, including some of the most recognized brands on the web. Well, good for them, but since Netcraft reckon there are currently over 400 million Web sites and there are only a handful of font services, that suggests to me that perhaps 1% of the Web is actually using these services. From the start, our vision has been to make the web more beautiful, readable, and fast. Unfortunately, what they've actually done is cause millions of pages to look terrible, indeed sometimes outright illegible, because most of their screen fonts simply aren't as good at body text sizes as the tried and tested Georgia, Verdana, etc. And there is no way that downloading a font from a third party service, even one with a great CDN, is faster than using a native one that's already installed locally. Herein lies the fundamental problem with the whole web-font-as-service concept: at body sizes, there is rarely enough difference at typical screen resolutions to justify a change from the old favourites (and such changes are usually ill-advised anyway), while for one-off uses like headings and pull quotes where distinctive fonts can make a worthwhile impact, the web design community was managing just fine already. As higher resolution screens become the norm, perhaps this will change, just as tiny pixel-drawn icons are giving way to scalable vector-based artwork (but it really shows on smaller or lower-resolution screens where you do still want a 16x16 or 32x32 icon and the vectors haven't been carefully crafted to fit pixel-perfect at that kind of scale). Even then, it's hard to see how you can justify paying a substantial amount of cash every month to use fonts on web sites, when no other on-line stock resources work that way and fonts for other uses don't work that way either. Still, I wish them well, if only for the benefit of those users who can fit in with their business model and do find it worthwhile. I don't share the pessimism of some here about the Adobe takeover, because one of the few things Adobe has pretty much always done well both technically and in terms of management/legal stuff is fonts.
athst 15y ago
Like everyone else, I'm happy for the founders. But as a Typekit customer, I was pretty disappointed to see their email announcement about this today. They were doing well and were on to something big - why did they have to sell now? I love their product, but they still have such a long way to go and so much they could improve on. It just seems so early and unnecessary.
redler 15y ago
From a historical perspective, this certainly feels like a logical, organic acquisition for both Typekit and Adobe. But it's disappointing that they didn't exit into the arms of Google. Google Web Fonts could have used the help and passion. They apparently danced, but unfortunately didn't leave the ball together: http://code.google.com/apis/webfonts/docs/webfont_loader.html http://code.google.com/apis/webfonts/docs/webfont_loader.htm... http://blog.typekit.com/2010/05/19/typekit-and-google/ http://blog.typekit.com/2010/05/19/typekit-and-google/ It's unlikely this will result in the kind of innovation or even disruption that a Google/Typekit union could have provided. Edit: Removed unnecessarily negative language.
williamle8300 15y ago
TypeKit served a purpose, but cross-browser support for @font-face has largely obsoleted them. Latest versions of Safari and Firefox and Google Chrome support @font-face and Opera is planning to support it soon.
- mnml_ 15y ago
  I have tried to use @font-face on a large website where all the users don't have up to date. All was just getting emails about old versions of safari crashing, ipads crashing chrome crashing etc. I agree with you TypeKit wont be useful forever but for now it's the best solution I have found.
  - charlieorford 15y ago
    YMMV but have you tried using this approach: http://www.fontspring.com/blog/further-hardening-of-the-bulletproof-syntax http://www.fontspring.com/blog/further-hardening-of-the-bull... We use the above with good results (supports IE6-9, FF, Safari, Android, iOS, Chrome and Opera). www.airbus.com (a large site) also uses this technique (or at least they did when I last looked).

179 points by jcsalterego 15y ago

I have some conflicted feelings. On one hand, I'm happy for Typekit team, if everything turns out the way they hope. Possible integration with Photoshop / DreamWeaver could help bring better fonts to the web, help them grow, invite more type foundries, and so on. On the other hand, Adobe quite often ruin things they acquire, and that would be just terrible, because Typekit was by far the best service for web fonts. Google fonts are quite crappy, FontDeck doesn't have the best foundries, and Fonts.com is expensive, and their fonts are less optimized for the web. So here's to the bright future of Typekit, in which the service remains great and inexpensive.

masnick 15y ago
I agree with the parent...when I saw this headline, I immediately thought of this blog: http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/ http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/.
markbao 15y ago
Fonts.com has an excellent webfonts offering which includes name-brand fonts like Frutiger, Helvetica Neue, Avenir, and others.
- flixic 15y ago
  Yes, but they are more than 4 times as expensive, and most of their fonts are not optimized for the web (unlike Typekit's).
briandear 15y ago
Let's hope so. I would like Typekit to be integrated better with Adobe products, but not at the expense of the core Typekit service.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

markbao 15y ago

I liked Typekit. I hope Adobe won't run it into the ground, like the rest of the companies they've acquired.

davidedicillo 15y ago
I agree. And hopefully won't require some ugly software in order to use it.
- reustle 15y ago
  Don't worry, it will seamlessly work. They're just going to push out a change via the hosted JS that injects flash elements to display the fonts.
  - wgx 15y ago
    And requires the install of Adobe AIR.
    - bsergean 15y ago
      I hope you're having a great time bashing on Adobe. I think I was flagged as a bad boy once because I was telling bad things on Apple, it's funny I don't think this will ever happen if you bash Adobe, you must win karma points or whatever it's called if you do that.
protomyth 15y ago
To be fair (and I have a tough time of it with Adobe), a lot of their suite was acquired. They seem to be able to transition products fairly well for a large company.
- smackfu 15y ago
  Yeah, much of what is now synonymous with the Adobe brand name is from the acquisition of Macromedia.

mtgentry 15y ago

I love Typekit. I think Adobe knows better than to mess with the product itself. However the pricing model is pretty low by Adobe standards. I hope that doesn't change.

reustle 15y ago

Oh no.

jfb 15y ago
This was my reaction, and the reaction of three people who walked past my desk and saw the announcement. Good for the Typekit guys, and thanks for the service, but my faith in Adobe not balling things up is shaky.

hsmyers 15y ago

Price will increase, service will decrease. I'm happy for those at Typekit who cashed out, too bad for the users...

citricsquid 15y ago

Just got the $49.99/year plan, I've been considering it and I figure if Adobe are going to raise prices they'll hopefully let older customers stick to their original pricing... so maybe I got a good deal.

krosaen 15y ago

From the email I just got (I'm a paying customer): """ If you’re one of our customers, this announcement means things will only get better. Typekit will remain a standalone product, as well as become a vital part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Our team will stay together, and we’re excited to start working on even easier ways to integrate web fonts into your workflow. """ They're saying all the right things: standalone product, team staying together, etc, sure hope so.

huhtenberg 15y ago
> even easier ways to integrate Good, a pure CSS then. Like all other font services these days.

dasil003 15y ago

Maybe if the chorus rises loud enough, Adobe management will get a clue and not ruin Typekit.

czottmann 15y ago

I, for one, am looking forward to Adobe Air-powered Typekit Installation packages containing native OSX installers that spit out HTML snippets.

peterjmag 15y ago

Typekit is an excellent service for the price, but the main reason I've remained a committed customer and evangelist is their constant drive to improve. I love that they've worked so hard to improve font rendering on Windows (which I'm sure is a huge pain in the ass) and that they encourage foundries to hint their fonts (which improves rendering for everyone). I hope that this acquisition won't hinder that kind of initiative.

sambeau 15y ago

Now that Adobe has bought Typekit I anticipate an HTML5 version of Adobe Bridge® bundled with Adobe® Typekit® Master Collection® 6.0…

vilius 15y ago

It's interesting to see Typekit guys cashing out. I bet the price was pretty solid. I remember, when I first tried their service in 2009, the first impression was wow, it works!. Not only in technological aspect. It felt that the Startup worked. The timing and niche instantly became to be "naturally clear". Two years passed and we see here a nice cash out. Meanwhile: let's step up and do something wow, it works. Stripe has started doing it in 2011. And probably many more.

petercooper 15y ago

If you're in the UK (or, heck, outside of the US), start saving up for when the standard Adobe currency conversion rates of $1 = £2 come into action ;-)

Silhouette 15y ago

Typekit is a funny concept to me. While I can respect and admire their ability to build a successful company, I think the blog post shows just how rose-tinted are the spectacles worn by these font services: Second, we could innovate on the business side as well. We could sell fonts as a service, and use a subscription model to eliminate Byzantine licensing and usage issues. I wonder how much money they would have made if they'd sold fonts with a simple, one-term commercial licence fee, just like stock photography, music, icons, etc. I know there's no way I could ever use their services with any of the clients I've had, because you simply can't factor in an ongoing cost that is unrestricted and controlled by a third party when giving a fixed price quote for most clients. However, I've spent significant amounts of my own and various companies' money to buy good quality fonts for other uses, and would surely have done so for web fonts as well if anyone was willing to take my money on that basis. Few sites used web fonts when we got started; today, new sites seldom launch without them. Typekit now serves nearly three billion fonts per month on over one million different sites, including some of the most recognized brands on the web. Well, good for them, but since Netcraft reckon there are currently over 400 million Web sites and there are only a handful of font services, that suggests to me that perhaps 1% of the Web is actually using these services. From the start, our vision has been to make the web more beautiful, readable, and fast. Unfortunately, what they've actually done is cause millions of pages to look terrible, indeed sometimes outright illegible, because most of their screen fonts simply aren't as good at body text sizes as the tried and tested Georgia, Verdana, etc. And there is no way that downloading a font from a third party service, even one with a great CDN, is faster than using a native one that's already installed locally. Herein lies the fundamental problem with the whole web-font-as-service concept: at body sizes, there is rarely enough difference at typical screen resolutions to justify a change from the old favourites (and such changes are usually ill-advised anyway), while for one-off uses like headings and pull quotes where distinctive fonts can make a worthwhile impact, the web design community was managing just fine already. As higher resolution screens become the norm, perhaps this will change, just as tiny pixel-drawn icons are giving way to scalable vector-based artwork (but it really shows on smaller or lower-resolution screens where you do still want a 16x16 or 32x32 icon and the vectors haven't been carefully crafted to fit pixel-perfect at that kind of scale). Even then, it's hard to see how you can justify paying a substantial amount of cash every month to use fonts on web sites, when no other on-line stock resources work that way and fonts for other uses don't work that way either. Still, I wish them well, if only for the benefit of those users who can fit in with their business model and do find it worthwhile. I don't share the pessimism of some here about the Adobe takeover, because one of the few things Adobe has pretty much always done well both technically and in terms of management/legal stuff is fonts.

athst 15y ago

Like everyone else, I'm happy for the founders. But as a Typekit customer, I was pretty disappointed to see their email announcement about this today. They were doing well and were on to something big - why did they have to sell now? I love their product, but they still have such a long way to go and so much they could improve on. It just seems so early and unnecessary.

redler 15y ago

From a historical perspective, this certainly feels like a logical, organic acquisition for both Typekit and Adobe. But it's disappointing that they didn't exit into the arms of Google. Google Web Fonts could have used the help and passion. They apparently danced, but unfortunately didn't leave the ball together: http://code.google.com/apis/webfonts/docs/webfont_loader.html http://code.google.com/apis/webfonts/docs/webfont_loader.htm... http://blog.typekit.com/2010/05/19/typekit-and-google/ http://blog.typekit.com/2010/05/19/typekit-and-google/ It's unlikely this will result in the kind of innovation or even disruption that a Google/Typekit union could have provided. Edit: Removed unnecessarily negative language.

williamle8300 15y ago

TypeKit served a purpose, but cross-browser support for @font-face has largely obsoleted them. Latest versions of Safari and Firefox and Google Chrome support @font-face and Opera is planning to support it soon.

mnml_ 15y ago
I have tried to use @font-face on a large website where all the users don't have up to date. All was just getting emails about old versions of safari crashing, ipads crashing chrome crashing etc. I agree with you TypeKit wont be useful forever but for now it's the best solution I have found.
- charlieorford 15y ago
  YMMV but have you tried using this approach: http://www.fontspring.com/blog/further-hardening-of-the-bulletproof-syntax http://www.fontspring.com/blog/further-hardening-of-the-bull... We use the above with good results (supports IE6-9, FF, Safari, Android, iOS, Chrome and Opera). www.airbus.com (a large site) also uses this technique (or at least they did when I last looked).