LetterHead Font Buyers Beware!

[George Kern]

hmm, interesting…i send a nasty e-mail back and now theres a big fat notice on their home page

Letterhead Fonts are now available only in Postscript-flavored Open Type. This means that your software must support Open Type fonts. Open Type fonts work great in most Microsoft applications, SignLab 7.1+, FlexiSign 7+, CorelDraw 9+, Illustrator 9+, Photoshop 5.5+, InDesign 1.0+, Quark 4+, Freehand 10+, Gerber Omega 2.51+.

only problem is it doesn’t work well with flexisign 7, crashes illustrator, quark doesn’t even show up, and our CNC software as well…tried on multiple machines with different configurations as well with the same results.

[Peter Normington]

thats a worthy rant George,
if its as you say, then I cant see many people continuing to support them.
If I buy something (even just a lisence) I would expect to have possession of the file, Oh well such is life..
Peter

[George Kern]

I did some further research on the matter and there are about 10 articles online right now, one is a 4 page post on typophile.com about how upset people are about this and how they wont refund or help. and like i said it wouldn’t be a problem if they just worked correctly or worked with my font managers. Instead i get an executable file that goes out to some server (hopefully secure) opens ports on my computer (it tried but my firewall alerts me first) and comes back with invalid security certificates. At the end of the day…its a font, nothing more nothing less, there are governments using less security to encrypt their e-mails for cryin out loud lol (not sure if thats a good thing).

Caveat emptor. . . just make sure your systems are compatible first everyone, because I can tell you this, their refund policy is simple, there isn’t any.

[Marcella Ross]

I think they will most definitely lose custom. As you say it’s only a font !

[George Kern]

I shouldn’t really say its just a font, they are works of art for the most part, they do take tons of time to create a really great one, but seriously. . . you pay $35-100 for a good font, probably 100 hours for some good ones. Microsoft creates an operating system, takes 4 years…people are pirating it before its even out…their solution, let them…when it comes to updating it, it realizes they have a bogus license number and it kills their usage…so why not do the same with the fonts, theirs no need to go through all this hassle and make people not want to deal with your company any more, especially graphics designers and sign makers…the same people who made your company what it is today.

Great, its compatible with Office 2007…so i can use a $99 font in Word and Excel…because thats where i spend most of my time designing 🙄

[Peter Normington]

quote George Kern:

I shouldn’t really say its just a font, they are works of art for the most part, they do take tons of time to create a really great one, but seriously. . . you pay $35-100 for a good font, probably 100 hours for some good ones. Microsoft creates an operating system, takes 4 years…people are pirating it before its even out…their solution, let them…when it comes to updating it, it realizes they have a bogus license number and it kills their usage…so why not do the same with the fonts, theirs no need to go through all this hassle and make people not want to deal with your company any more, especially graphics designers and sign makers…the same people who made your company what it is today.

I’ll agree George.
letterhead fonts are well worth the money, but they market to sign people. most appreciate the value of the font, and most would not give them away freely. so there has to be some amount of trust, perceived or actual.

There are enough free fonts available on the web, but only the connoisseur would buy from or look at letterheads.
perhaps they are getting paranoid?

Peter

[George Kern]

http://typophile.com/node/30452?from=150&comments_per_page=50

Chuck posted in there, doesn’t seem paranoid, just frustrated. He wrote a very nice response there, the only thing was when i contacted them i got a very snippy response, not once but twice…it wasn’t Chuck though i guess it was his sales people or other employees. He talks about how someone went around on eBay and sold the entire foundry on there for $50 but it was also packaged with Letraset, BitStream, House etc. House Industries tried this protection once too…failed miserably and they no longer try it because like we already said, the people who are going to use these fonts are going to buy them, not some 15 yr old "designer" editing his myspace.com page.

[Chris Wool]

thank you for sharing george when they sort it out i will buy some more till then !.

chris

[George Kern]

i can tell you who isn’t buying any of their work until then…i finally got it working in Illustrator….took my laptop home after work…just booted it up, now they are gone again and needed to be "re-activated"…did that….now the same errors in Illustrator. Called them again on the phone…they are blaming it on my system. So just out of curiosity i brought their file over to my cousins house who is a photographer and has a few Macs and PCs as well…at first we thought…ok it works…maybe it was my systems….and then….crash. Restarted and the fonts were gone again.

[Shane Drew]

Thanks George. I was about to buy some new stuff from them… might look elsewhere now…

Thanks for the heads up..

If they had a problem with their fonts being pirated on ebay, they should sue ebay. Ebay get away with far too much in my opinion. If I did the same thing via my own website, I’d be taken to the cleaners in a blink of an eye 👿

[George Kern]

Exactly, I am glad everyone is on the same page as me for the most part. I guess what is bothering me is how much I actually liked their fonts and how inacessible they are making them, and if they actually do work on your system you have to reload them eveeeeerytime. Face it, i have paid much more then the $35-90 a font they are asking here….Elsner+Flake Premium Type Collection retails for $5,200USD but you know what, this was paid off for in one job and then some…so who cares…like i said the people who seek these elite fonts are your average schmuck off the streets, they are dedicated professionals of the industry and they are paying top dollar to use these high quality fonts. I completely understand a lot of thought, creativeness, and time went into these fonts and the artists should be compensated 100% for them, but when you go this far…it makes you wonder what the real intentions are. just my .02 cents…feel free to comment

[Jason Xuereb]

I agree with George. People who steal their fonts won’t purchase them in the first place. If they couldn’t get their fonts for free I doubt they’d purchase them period.

I think companies investing vast amounts of cash in anti piracy should just spend that same money on marketing trying to get more sales which won’t affect their business and increase their market share.

If I sued each client who hadn’t paid me etc it would cost me alot more in losses then just letting it go and spending that money on getting new customers.

The cost of doing business.

[Jill Marie Welsh]

I am still on Win98SE, and was saddened to see that they no longer offer true type fonts.
On my production computer (Win98SE and GA 6.2) I was going to try to get the fonts on CD because they do offer them in the Gerber format.
Now I’m scared to try this for fear of the hassle.
It is true that even dedicated sign people swap Letterhead and other fonts.
Nothing is sacred.
Love….Jill

[Shane Drew]

I have to be really honest here friends, that’s why I have a problem with posting fonts here in these forums. This is the very reason that LHF have felt the need to go down this path. And in a small way, posting fonts that should be purchased is just reinforcing their position.

I often get annoyed with some people here that need a font that is as little as 9 pound, and are not prepared to spend the money but would rather accept a pirated version.

I have, and still do, happily pay $au35 or more to add ‘proper, well made fonts’ to my font list. Signdna have some good stuff too, so there are plenty of others that are at the low end of the price bracket.

I just think that we should be suggesting links to the required font if we know its not actually free. And the excuse that it was on our computer, or it came with a software program like corel, is not really an excuse for giving it away either. These fonts are no doubt licensed to the software vendor, which does not actually make them free.

I know others here don’t agree with me, and that’s OK too. Its a free democratic society we live in after all, but, its hard to complain about LHF going down this path, insisting on ‘respect’ of their ‘art’ when on the other hand we, as a community, actively support the piracy by not stopping it on this site.

That said, I’ll buy my fonts elsewhere, because I think they have gone too far. What if they go ‘belly up’, I’d be disadvantaged by paying the money, and lots of it, and not then having the fonts in my possession.

The argument is sound that pirates would never buy their fonts anyway, but that does not account for the moron that buys one, then pirates it to sell or giveaway at some time in the future.

We’ve all been guilty of posting and receiving fonts in the past, me included. I’ll be very happy to post the text in an ai or eps, but I made the decision along time ago, not to post fonts anymore. That goes the same as posting Impact or MR car outlines as it essentially the same principal.

Just my view anyway. Not meant to be offensive.

[John Childs]

Spot on Shane. 😀

[George Kern]

Your definately correct Shane. I will try and dig up an eBook i made a while back about fonts and how to use them, legal distribution issues, sharing etc. A lot of the major font foundries even have in the EULA agreements that it is also illegal to convert the font text to outlines/curves and embedding them in .pdfs as well. On a regular basis i deal with several well known American and Canadian ad agencies that constantly re-distribute very expensive fonts by packaging the job in a layout program like Quark or Indesign so it just goes to show you, everyone has done it, and everyone is guilty of it at one point or to some extent, but it doesn’t mean we should encourage it or continue to do so and a lot of the time it is probably done accidentally because the license isnt known unless you check the fonts properties. Maybe if the licensed fonts had a special OTF or TTF icon with like a lock over it, it would be even easier to tell what you can freely distribute and what you shouldn’t.

[Shane Drew]

quote George Kern:

Maybe if the licensed fonts had a special OTF or TTF icon with like a lock over it, it would be even easier to tell what you can freely distribute and what you shouldn’t.

Unfortunately, if your dishonest though George, any icon would make no difference. Just look at the amount of peeps that are happy to buy pirated software off ebay. Then come on here for advise how to use it 👿

Your appealing to people with a conscience, ethics or morality. Don’t know about you mate, but I find those qualities in people severely lacking these days 🙁

[George Kern]

quote Shane Drew:

quote George Kern:

Maybe if the licensed fonts had a special OTF or TTF icon with like a lock over it, it would be even easier to tell what you can freely distribute and what you shouldn’t.

Unfortunately, if your dishonest though George, any icon would make no difference. Just look at the amount of peeps that are happy to buy pirated software off ebay. Then come on here for advise how to use it 👿

Your appealing to people with a conscience, ethics or morality. Don’t know about you mate, but I find those qualities in people severely lacking these days 🙁

I didn’t mean that the icon would stop people, i meant that it would make it easier for people to know the status of a license. I bet that some of the sharing of these fonts are due to lack of knowledge and laziness to check the license, thats all i am referring to. As for lacking those qualities…yes i have noticed that as well, especially in the design industry where you deal with non-tangible objects such as licenses, software, fonts etc.

[Shane Drew]

quote George Kern:

I didn’t mean that the icon would stop people, i meant that it would make it easier for people to know the status of a license. .

Yes mate, I know what you say. Knowing the status would only affect the honest users anyway.

Can’t see a simple answer to the problem though… but I do know that LHF have not got it right either. The problem is so many design/print/advertising co’s have pdf work flows. And converting to curves is not an answer, because of that work flow. It means a simple change of text always has to go back to the start of the work flow. Sort of defeats the work flow idea doesn’t it. 😕

[George Kern]

agree 100% with you, especially companies like Adobe completely revolutionizing workflow by integrating all their software from InDesign-Photoshop-Flash seamlessly. If font companies start doing what LHF is doing its going to cripple that flow that Adobe is spending probably…billions on.

[Shane Drew]

quote George Kern:

If font companies start doing what LHF is doing its going to cripple that flow that Adobe is spending probably…billions on.

definitely a backward step if they do, but any other font company that ignores the many critics over this decision would do so at the loss of sales I’m sure.

A fair few LHF clients are moving on to other suppliers as a result.

If other font suppliers have a good marketing dept, they can see a buck in the trend against LHF.

I’ve certainly found other suppliers now that I’ve gone looking. Before, I was happy to stay with LHF exclusively. I’m sure I’m not the only one to feel that way. Its got to hurt their bottom line though.

I wonder what their contributing ‘artists’ feel about it in private. It would equate to less income for them too. Signdna and Signfonts would be smiling about now….

[George Kern]

And i hope they gain a lot of sales because of it. This is something going on now since december and the more and more i dig up online it just seems that they are sticking to their guns on the matter and ignoring the customer.