Typography: It’s a (Copyrighted) Art

It was with my burgeoning interest in design several years ago that I first became aware of the art of typography—how fonts are set in a design to appeal to readability, practicality, and aesthetic tastes. I’ve by no means since become a font aficionado, though I am something of a snob about choosing just the right font for my creative work.

There are those—typographers—who have made this their goal: to create just the right font for any situation. It is a true art. The intricacy of font work lends itself to a great deal of vision, patience, and mayhap a bit of oddity. (Check out “Being a Typographer” at CreativePro.com).

It is the same as any other unique image—and has just as much of a claim over copyright. But that fact is something we occasionally forget. ‘We’ being anyone from a personal user creating a poster for a band to a business creating a website for their product to, say, a very large company using the fonts for their ads.

Such was the case with NBC, which is currently facing a lawsuit from typographic firm The Font Bureau over a mishandling of font licensing. The Font Bureau, which is a big shot in the typographic world (having designed over 1,500 fonts for over 300 companies, according to their website), claims that NBC did not secure the rights to use a handful of fonts that appeared in their fall marketing campaign. A big mistake, as without proper licensing, all of that advertising can be pulled and would need to be redone. And that is an extremely expensive process.

Even large companies running intricate and expensive advertising campaigns make mistakes. But the fact of the matter is that, whether this or other incidents were purposeful or honest mistakes, people occasionally see a font as something they have an automatic right to—because it’s there, and it’s only text, and hey, who cares anyway?

A lot of people care. Fonts aren’t just text, they aren’t just how you read something. They can determine your perspective, your emotions, your thoughts. They are about appeal, about cleverness, about intrigue. It’s certainly apparent in the publishing industry. Typography is essential to both cover and interior design, and determines if a reader will even pick up your book. Not to mention the delicate balance between creating a good design and creating a design that smacks of the amateur or unprofessional je ne sais quoi, usually in ways more subtle (even subliminal) than we can imagine.

Diatribe aside, take some time to consider typography if you haven’t already. You’ll find that you have tastes and preferences, fonts that you love and fonts that you detest (and fonts that you just find lame). You’ll start to notice common fonts and design nuances, the way a sign over a shop or a billboard along the street or a book in your bookstore can grab your attention just by using the text in the right way. And remember that when you are creating your own design, that those typographers have worked to give you a near-infinite selection of font designs to enhance your work. And whether the fonts are purchased or free—show them the love they deserve.

Interested in fonts? Here are a few blogs dedicated to fonts and typography:

-        i love typography

-        the font feed

-        AisleOne

-        The Ministry of Type

-        Type Directors Club

-        TypeOff

-        Typographer.org

Looking for fonts to use on your own projects? Free or Creative Commons-licensed fonts:

-        dafont.com

-        urbanfonts

-        Font Freak