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Helvetica Now Variable

monotype.com

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141–150 of 197 posts

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#141

Post by dylan604 »

xwdv wrote: post #129
da_chicken wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately it is expensive, and you can't just buy it and use it, you have to renew the license annually. Not even that. If you want it for a web page you have to pay in blocks of page views. In my mind that moves it from "eh" to "LOL no". These are licensing terms for people who want the name.

Shouldn’t bother using custom fonts on web pages anyway, use the standard web fonts and save custom fonts for print or graphic designs.

I'm sure you're a big hit at all of the design meetings! How dare the devs tell the marketing/graphics people what they can and cannot do. Becareful, or they'll shove GA/AMP down at you in response!

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#142

Post by chansiky »

todd3834 wrote: post #18

Am I crazy for expecting fonts to be free? There are so many good options that I can use without paying a license fee. I can't imagine liking the tiny differences in a font so much that I would get myself locked into a yearly licensing fee.

Just use the free ones. There are some that are better than Helvetica, just like there are cars cheaper and faster than a Ferrari without the brand name.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#143

Post by chrisweekly »

cosmie wrote: post #134
spockz wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one is going through those lengths to influence a page view counter, couldn’t one just report a different number? What did the WAF even do?

In the case of the font foundry my client was licensing from, ‣ You were not allowed to self-host the font files, and had to load them directly from the hosting URL provided by the font foundry ‣ There was no explicit reporting involved. Every time the font resource was downloaded from their server, the foundry counted that as a licensed pageview. ‣ The foundry used cache control headers[1] on the response, so that e…

...and all this pain, expense, complexity, and degraded UX, for the sake of _someone's preconceived ideas about the RELATIVE value to the brand of that particular font vs a generic font_. Yikes.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#144

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

cosmie wrote: post #121
da_chicken wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it is standard practice. That still doesn't make commercial web font licenses more reasonable for anything except advertising and marketing campaigns.

It's also incredibly risky for advertising and marketing campaigns. I had one client that started getting their product catalog scraped aggressively, and the invoice for their licensed font usage that month was an order of magnitude higher than they expected (low six figures, vs. low five figures). They slapped the site behind an aggressively configured enterprise WAF[1] in response to that bill specifically. It made…

I assume the parent comment meant non-Webfont applications, i.e. for static assets (print or raster/vector digital)

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#145

Post by Igelau »

dhosek wrote: post #90
knowledge-clay wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typefaces should not be copyrightable. Print ones are not, it makes no sense that digital ones are.

That type designs are not protected is a gross injustice. The time and effort involved in creating a type design is significant. Alas, when the type industry had the resources to lobby to have copyright law changed, they were making a lot of money from stealing each others' designs and chose to lobby the opposite. There was an ill-fated effort in the 90s to lobby for typeface design protection (I was part of it as th…

It's not worth the hell that would ensue with people suing each other because their letters look too similar. Letters have to look similar -- that's the whole damn point!

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#146

Post by mod50ack »

flowerlad wrote: post #9

Fantastic font, now infinitely malleable! Unfortunately it is expensive, and you can't just buy it and use it, you have to renew the license annually. https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/helvetica-now-variable?tab... And my use case isn't even covered: include in a web application that will be downloaded and installed by customers. My current choice is OpenSans https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans

If you want to use Helvetica, you can use the FOSS Nimbus Sans. It's literally a reimplementation of PostScript Helvetica.

https://github.com/ArtifexSoftware/urw-base35-fonts

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#147

Post by Igelau »

N1H1L wrote: post #21
KitDuncan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at Inter. Absolutely the best open source font I found. Also variable!

Another great option and my current favorite is the Source Family from Adobe. They are open source and variable, and have a full family of Serif, Sans and Monospace fonts. https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-serif https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-sans https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-code-pro

I used Source Code Pro all the time until I found out about Comic Mono.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#149

Post by Wowfunhappy »

da_chicken wrote: post #138
hda111 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I need to develop a view counter for my static website? Not sure how to do that. Why do I need to pay for search engines crawling my website?

I think you link the webfont as an external resource on their site. I'm just speculating, however.

This is exactly how it works. You can't host the fonts locally.

Re: Helvetica Now Variable

#150

Post by itslennysfault »

flixic wrote: post #130
philosopher1234 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood under what circumstances you would really need a custom font. Could you say more about why that was the case?

Both Netflix[0] and the company I worked at designed custom fonts to _save_ money. As other comment threads say, it's a standard practice to license by pageviews, and it can be difficult to negotiate. Alternative: just have your own custom font, exclusive and unlimited license. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/21/17147170/netflix-sans-cus...

...but was it cheaper than just finding a suitable free font(s)?

However, if a design team wants to make their own font and has the resources to do so I don't see why not. It's a strong branding move.

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