5 ms·

I love how all these 'brand' fonts look indistinguishable to an untrained eye and still brain-frying-bordedom-inducingly close to each other to someone like me

I love how all these 'brand' fonts look indistinguishable to an untrained eye and still brain-frying-bordedom-inducingly close to each other to someone like me who actually studied & worked in typography. Related: https://eidosdesign.substack.com/p/why-every-brand-looks-the-same-and https://eidosdesign.substack.com/p/why-every-brand-looks-the...

bensyverson 6mo ago
It's just the design team running in place. And at a certain scale, it's cheaper to pay a type foundry $100k once, rather than paying Monotype continuous fees for a legacy family. But as someone who has made multiple neutral sans families, I agree. The launch rhetoric about creating a differentiated visual identity is comical when you look at all the interchangeable corporate sans together.
dkuntz2 6mo ago
that's because a ton of them are just off the shelf fonts they had someone make minor changes to
bonoboTP 6mo ago
Pretty sure it's just the pendulum swinging. Today its all about serious and clean and minimal. Then it will be whimsical and maximalist again. Skinny jeans, baggy jeans. Skeumorphic, flat.
gguncth 6mo ago
The purpose of the brand font is to avoid paying licensing fees. Because the typefaces aren’t protected by copyright it’s usually enough to just have someone go and essentially clone an existing font. The whole thing is an artifact of peculiarities of IP law
- breakingcups 6mo ago
  Is that true, though? Wouldn't it be possible to just copy a font wholesale, since they are uncopyrightable? How would licensing fees be enforced?
  - hedora 6mo ago
    I think modern fonts include hinting software and stuff like that. If you produced a bunch of screenshots of the output at various sizes, and then asked an LLM to convert to ttf or whatever, I’m guessing that’d be OK. I’m not an expert in this stuff though.
  - elcapitan 6mo ago
    Brand fonts are typically a specific license by the original creator of the font, often together with some adjustments (e.g. big companies often need additions for global markets that were not in the smaller original font)
- virtualritz 6mo ago
  My comment was not on why but what. A brand is still free to commission a copy/clone of an 'interesting' font that has character (or, beware even serifs) ...
- JoshTriplett 6mo ago
  > The purpose of the brand font is to avoid paying licensing fees. There are more than enough good fonts under OFL that it surprises me people want to commission a custom font primarily for licensing reasons rather than using a standard one.
layer8 6mo ago
I think they just misspelled “Bland fonts”.
bigstrat2003 6mo ago
Corporate branding is nothing but an exercise in playing psychological tricks on people. None of it is actually distinct or important. But the silver tongued guys say it is, so people believe it even though it isn't true.

bensyverson 6mo ago

It's just the design team running in place. And at a certain scale, it's cheaper to pay a type foundry $100k once, rather than paying Monotype continuous fees for a legacy family. But as someone who has made multiple neutral sans families, I agree. The launch rhetoric about creating a differentiated visual identity is comical when you look at all the interchangeable corporate sans together.

dkuntz2 6mo ago

that's because a ton of them are just off the shelf fonts they had someone make minor changes to

bonoboTP 6mo ago

Pretty sure it's just the pendulum swinging. Today its all about serious and clean and minimal. Then it will be whimsical and maximalist again. Skinny jeans, baggy jeans. Skeumorphic, flat.

gguncth 6mo ago

The purpose of the brand font is to avoid paying licensing fees. Because the typefaces aren’t protected by copyright it’s usually enough to just have someone go and essentially clone an existing font. The whole thing is an artifact of peculiarities of IP law

breakingcups 6mo ago
Is that true, though? Wouldn't it be possible to just copy a font wholesale, since they are uncopyrightable? How would licensing fees be enforced?
- hedora 6mo ago
  I think modern fonts include hinting software and stuff like that. If you produced a bunch of screenshots of the output at various sizes, and then asked an LLM to convert to ttf or whatever, I’m guessing that’d be OK. I’m not an expert in this stuff though.
- elcapitan 6mo ago
  Brand fonts are typically a specific license by the original creator of the font, often together with some adjustments (e.g. big companies often need additions for global markets that were not in the smaller original font)
virtualritz 6mo ago
My comment was not on why but what. A brand is still free to commission a copy/clone of an 'interesting' font that has character (or, beware even serifs) ...
JoshTriplett 6mo ago
> The purpose of the brand font is to avoid paying licensing fees. There are more than enough good fonts under OFL that it surprises me people want to commission a custom font primarily for licensing reasons rather than using a standard one.

layer8 6mo ago

I think they just misspelled “Bland fonts”.

bigstrat2003 6mo ago

Corporate branding is nothing but an exercise in playing psychological tricks on people. None of it is actually distinct or important. But the silver tongued guys say it is, so people believe it even though it isn't true.