It takes hours and hours and hours to make a font from an expert designer -- a rare skill set. I do think they generally should be rewarded for good work. Luckily Apple already has in Monaco, which is what I use. Wish there was a way to try this font out for a week without dropping the $200
It takes hours and hours and hours to make a font from an expert designer -- a rare skill set. I do think they generally should be rewarded for good work.
That's pretty much entirely irrelevant. The time anyone takes to put together something is immaterial to the price. The only thing that's relevant is the added value. Putting together a new font has a very marginal added value -- if any -- for end-users such as people using editors or IDEs.
If we're talking about publishing then that's a whole different thing: fonts are a major part of the end design, and they can play a major role in establishing a corporate identity. Playing a part in that does add value, just like incorporating the work of a professional photographer in the corporate image.
But that doesn't mean that any picture taken by anyone suddenly is worth small fortunes, particularly if the photographer wastes too much time taking useless pictures.
Fonts and design play a huge role in how we understand and relate to the world. Most of this happens with us being unaware. But if a specific font is easier to read, or more pleasant to look at, that will alter our mood, outlook, and productivity.
What your arguing is a bit like saying 8-bit non-antialiased fonts running CDE in Emacs has the same value prop as running Atom on a mac today. It's just not true, otherwise the market would look very different.
No doubt they should be rewarded but charging $200 from each dev using it might not be the best business model. You have to provide value that justifies the cost, I don't think that's the case here.
Comments
It takes hours and hours and hours to make a font from an expert designer -- a rare skill set. I do think they generally should be rewarded for good work. Luckily Apple already has in Monaco, which is what I use. Wish there was a way to try this font out for a week without dropping the $200
That's pretty much entirely irrelevant. The time anyone takes to put together something is immaterial to the price. The only thing that's relevant is the added value. Putting together a new font has a very marginal added value -- if any -- for end-users such as people using editors or IDEs.
If we're talking about publishing then that's a whole different thing: fonts are a major part of the end design, and they can play a major role in establishing a corporate identity. Playing a part in that does add value, just like incorporating the work of a professional photographer in the corporate image.
But that doesn't mean that any picture taken by anyone suddenly is worth small fortunes, particularly if the photographer wastes too much time taking useless pictures.
Fonts and design play a huge role in how we understand and relate to the world. Most of this happens with us being unaware. But if a specific font is easier to read, or more pleasant to look at, that will alter our mood, outlook, and productivity.
What your arguing is a bit like saying 8-bit non-antialiased fonts running CDE in Emacs has the same value prop as running Atom on a mac today. It's just not true, otherwise the market would look very different.
No doubt they should be rewarded but charging $200 from each dev using it might not be the best business model. You have to provide value that justifies the cost, I don't think that's the case here.