Font Licensing for Clients and why it is important

Introduction

Font Licensing is a bit of a dark area for people outside the business of making and selling fonts. Fonts are software products so the same rules apply to them - meaning that when you purchase a font you actually are paying for a license to use it, not to own it. 

Sending Reward Gateway the fonts you purchased is actually ILLEGAL and prohibited by copyright laws.

Why font licenses are important?

The consequences of using illegal fonts can be different. We’re not going to explain in detail but the most obvious is loss of reputation and probably - money loss. There’s an extensive collection of various cases throughout the years about world-renowned companies losing lawsuits over the illegal use of fonts. If interested read here: https://qr.ae/pGaeNF

When a company purchases a license to use a font, it only licenses it for use internally - in printed materials, videos, and websites. There are many different types of licenses - for print use, for websites, and for apps. The cheapest license is the Desktop one - for use with company branding, materials and communications. Then if you want to use the same font as your webfont, you must purchase an additional license. The most expensive one is the app license - it can be 10 times the Desktop license. More detailed info on licenses here https://www.myfonts.com/collections/gilroy-font-radomir-tinkov?tab=licensing

Below is a sample license scheme for a single font - i.e Arial Regular, but not Arial Bold. Fonts can also be purchased in Families - which is all the weights or styles (Light, Regular, Bold, Extrabold…) of the same typeface. Usually, there’s a volume discount if you purchase a Family instead of separate weights.

What are the fonts your brand is using?

If your company has Internal Communications Team or a Brand Team you can ask them what fonts your brand is using and what is their license - is it possible for it to be used by external providers, agencies and contractors?

Otherwise, take a look at your Brand Guidelines (sometimes called Brand Book), search for Typography (or Fonts) section and notice the fonts specified. These can fall into a few categories.

Standard Fonts

If your brand uses a standard font that comes with the operating systems on most computers, like

• Arial, Helvetica, Calibri, Verdana, Trebuchet, Impact
• Times, Times New Roman, Georgia, Comic Sans

there is no need to take further action - Reward Gateway will design your logo and use these for your platform too.

Google and Open Font Licensed fonts

Some of the most often-used fonts are coming from Google. Take a look at this library: Google Fonts

If your brand is using one (or more) of them there is no need to take further action - Reward Gateway will design your logo and use these for your platform too, as they are free to use by anyone.

Adobe Fonts

In case your brand is based on a font from this library: https://fonts.adobe.com/ there is no need to take further action - Reward Gateway will design your logo and use these for your platform too - as Reward Gateway owns a license to use these on our clients' artworks and websites. Perform a quick Google search for the font name and see if it is part of the Adobe Fonts Library.

If the fonts your brand is using are not in any of the above categories there are a few options.

Similar Fonts

You agree for Reward Gateway to provide an alternative from the above-mentioned sources (Google Fonts or Adobe Fonts) that looks similar (but not identical to your fonts) and you agree for Reward Gateway to use them instead.

Purchase a license for use by Reward Gateway

In case your Brand doesn't allow the use of alternative fonts - you must purchase and provide a license issued to Reward Gateway together with a copy of the custom font which you want us to use.
You may ask - we have bought a license, why buy another one? Even if the company has purchased a license to use the font in its own communications, each sub-contractor must obtain a separate license.

Buying a license

The example below is from MyFonts.com shopping cart but it would be pretty similar to other font vendors.

First, you need to decide whether you want to purchase INDIVIDUAL STYLES or the FAMILY PACKAGE - depending on what weights (styles) are used in your Brand.

You would need to buy just one user license - as Reward Gateway will assign one designer to work on your project.

The next step is usually to create an account (if your company doesn’t have one yet) and specify that you are purchasing this license for use by Reward Gateway.

After you perform all the steps you will be presented with a package (usually a ZIP file) with all the purchased fonts together with a license.

Proof of purchase

In the case of MyFonts, the proof of purchase will be stored in your account as a PDF - and it will look like this:

Please note that other font vendors' processes may look different.

Proprietary fonts

If your company has a proprietary font created exclusively for you, please provide Reward Gateway with a copy of the font - as usually the license for custom typeface includes the use of external providers.