Typeface designers invest much time, effort and financial resources to develop and produce original typefaces. It is this investment that makes original fonts so desirable. Most fonts are licensed from living designers who rely on this royalty income for their livelihood. The royalty is typically a percentage figure of the total price, which includes the font publishers' marketing costs and overhead. We hope that you can appreciate the necessity to compensate designers for their creative efforts.
Typeface designers spend months, even years, developing each design.
If designers are not compensated for their efforts, they will not be able to invest in creating new designs for people like you to enjoy in the future. Before the age of personal computers, barely more than a decade ago, type designers relied on typesetting equipment manufacturers to fund the development of their designs. Typesetters purchased fonts from the equipment manufacturers and the end users of type, graphic designers and publishers, in turn, compensated the typesetter by paying for the setting of their text. The personal computer democratized the manufacture, distribution and usage of fonts. For the first time in history, it is the users who must purchase fonts because they have been empowered with the ability to set their own type.