Crown®Feb 26

When it comes to naming fonts, something I suspect everyone dislikes doing—

When do you decide to care that another font exists with a desired name? If it is from a foundry you know? If it’s in a major font marketplace? Do you disqualify lower-quality fonts with a desired name? Do you ignore all the “etsy millennial script” fonts that inevitably use every name imaginable? When do you prefix or suffix with your foundry’s abbreviation? When do you say “fuck it” and name it whatever you want anyway?

Show threadKris SowersbyFeb 26
@crown Depends if you want everyone else to care about the names of your fonts… would you want someone else ripping one of yours?
Show threadCrown®Feb 26

@klim To be clear, I’m not advocating “ripping” anyone’s name that they’ve chosen— but it does make me wonder if I’m putting in more time and effort making sure the name is clear than others who do not.

Pre-internet, it does seem that people independently decided the same name for their unrelated styles. Now, we can do better due diligence, but maybe not everyone’s doing that. Someone might use the same name as one of my fonts without knowing mine exists. But I don’t really want to be someone who argues about who got there first either.

I guess what I’m asking is... is there a line? If a font exists, no matter how obscure, no matter how old, no matter what other variable, you would avoid that word? There are no bounds?

Show threadCrown®Feb 26
@klim I don’t know the history behind “National,” but searching “National font” results in a *lot* of fonts that are not Klim’s National. I bet the bulk of them came after 2007, but does that mean you don’t care that much to ensure yours is the only National that exists? I mean, it’s much worse for “Family.” Maybe part of my question is... does this bother you at all? Do these fonts factor into your decision-making?
Show threadKris Sowersby
@crown There’s only so much energy I can put into not making fonts. It doesn’t really bother me, I can only conduct myself as best I can!
Feb 27 at 10:44pmWeb