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Hey Mike, so I do screen printing and I work with fonts that I download from the web. I know you work with signage and was wondering what you guys do about using customers designs using fonts.
Have you ever had an instance where a customer gave you a design with a certain font and had the designer of that font come back to you saying that you can’t use it because a license for that font wasn’t purchased?
How do you go about doing that job not knowing for sure that the design/font they used is ok to use commercially?
What I’m getting at, I did a job for someone, I took pictures and posted them on my social media accounts for advertising. I had the designer of the font contact me saying that I wasn’t allowed to use that font because a commercial use license wasn’t purchased. I ended up paying the license so there wouldn’t be any trouble. Now I own the license to use it commercially.
I hope that makes sense…
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licenses vary, according to the creators wishes, so you really should check out the font license your customer wishes to use. There should be an end-user license attachment to every font you download or buy, or contact the vendor.
As a designer, both you and your client may need a license to use the font legally, again, check the EULA to see if it allows you to sub-license a font. In some instances, you may even need a license for every computer the font is installed on.
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yea, so far I have been lucky with the designs that I have done with downloaded fonts…but there are those rare occasions. I just don’t want to get nailed over a customers design that I screen print. I just had a lady yesterday ask me for a quote for some shirts, and I looked up the font that she used and it wasn’t a free commercial use. I asked her if she had bought the extended/commercial use license to use the font and she responded with “no, isn’t that your job”…lol…so I responded with, “i can do that, sure, I will just add it to the quote”, haven’t heard back from her…There are a lot of screen printers who nab designs off the internet and use them without paying for them, I get my designs from stock photo websites and buy the extended/commercial license so I can print and sell them.
I did happen to find a website that has free commercial use of fonts, a few ask for donations, usually around $5, but most are free for commercial use.
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What I do is look for a Google font equivalent: https://fonts.google.com Usually there is one that is spot on or at least “good enough” and then as far as I know you can use them unlimited, anywhere. I have like 1000+ .TTF files from the Google font repository.
Google Fonts make it quicker and easier for everyone to use web fonts, including professional designers and developers. All of the fonts are Open Source, which mean you can use them in every way you want, privately or commercially – in print, on your computer, or in your websites
All free!
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