For context, I‘m working on a startup that will make it easier to customers of font foundries to get purchased font files. I won’t say more to avoid self-promotion. Although I am wondering if the market is big enough for any business.

I know how I as an end user get fonts. I get a link to a place I can download them.

What I’m curious about is how this works for font foundries. How do foundries tend to get otf/ttf/woff2 files to a place they can be downloaded? Do they upload them through a website? Is there a service people tend to use? (I’ve seen some services use Shopify)

had a nice display face but it looked loose and amateurish for no obvious reason — turned out to be tracking too open at large size, plus bad kerning on a couple pairs (looking at you, "To"). Tightened it up, fixed the worst pairs by hand, and suddenly it reads like it was designed instead of just typed. Nobody consciously notices — they just feel like it looks more expensive. Anyone else spend way too long on something 99% of viewers will never register?

I'm collecting typefaces with a mysterious, dark fantasy forest character. I'll be using them for a book, so they shouldn't be designed only for display or titles—they also need to work well as body text.

I'm drawn to typefaces that immediately create the feeling that something unsettling is about to happen. For example, you could write the word "WELCOME", but if the typeface has the right mysterious character, it no longer feels like a warm or reassuring welcome.

The fonts I've collected so far are close to what I'm looking for, but I feel they're missing a bit more personality. They tend to resemble one another quite a lot.

Can you think of any hidden gems?

Hi guys

Just got an email from one of the biggest tech companies (think shopify, wix, webflow, squarespace) showing their interest in licensing one of our fonts in a perpetual, non-exclusive agreement with a one-time fee.

Their terms:

Font may be included in:

(i) the initial purchase/ download of the Services;
(ii) for individual purchase/ download within the Services;
(iii) as part of a subscription service/ download within the Services; or
(iv) as a part of a bundle of additional content and/or content for purchase/ download within the Services.

- Users of the Services may use what they make with your Font in any way they see fit for personal and commercial use.

- The Font may also appear in various promotional material that we use to advertise and display the Services.

- The files containing the Font are either incorporated/embedded into the Services and/or made available from a server, but we do not distribute the source file for the Font, i.e. the OTF or TTF files.

- A perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, fully paid, transferable, sublicensable right and license to upload, adapt, publish, modify, reproduce, copy, exhibit, publicly display, create derivative works of, distribute, sell, advertise, and otherwise use the Font, and the right to incorporate all or any portion of the Font in the Services in any form.

Can anyone share their experience with enterprise licensing of this scale? What terms to negotiate? How to base our pricing?

It's a full family with 8 weights.

Many thanks