Let’s say there is this market called “web content creators” and we are trying to sell them a product, a font. We want to sell them something that is going help make their web content a little better.
A really good way to sell them something would be to compare the dollar value of our product to the increased dollar value that will be added to their final product. Damn, their final product is free. Scratch that.
Since there is some labor and tools cost to creating their product we could compare our superior *professionally* created product to all the other tools they are using. Hrm…. it turns out all the tools and technologies used to create web content are pretty impressive and at a very low cost if not completely free.
Alright, let’s just hope these guys really like fonts. Let’s research the price of fonts of comparative quality and price our fonts below theirs. Uh oh, it turns out there are a lot of great quality free fonts to choose from already and it’s increasing every day.
In this market creating a font once and selling it a number of times does not seem like a smart business model. Maybe an alternative business model is more suited to this market.
There **are** other business models for individual font creators. The amount of people that **can** use newly created fonts is now increasing exponentially. Surely the creation of new custom fonts will still get some business as long as you’re willing to give them the font in an open format they can use anywhere.
Maybe the revenues aren’t enough to sustain an office and a half a dozen employees but it’s certainly enough for freelance font creators. I know a few web content creators that would love a one-on-one relationship with a font author and would pay a decent stipend for a custom tailored font.
Font creators will be fine. Font creation is sure to increase. But maybe the institutions that used to house font creation, “the foundries”, don’t have a sustainable model in this market.
