Preparing for the End of PostScript Type 1 Fonts, and Other Font Challenges with Greg Mitchell

Greg Mitchell, Founder & CEO of Font Shield, is a Type Director with over forty years of experience. To say Mitchell knows his way around the font industry would be an understatement. His mission at Font Shield is to support agencies and brands in the compliance and procurement of the fonts they license so they can worry-free deliver their deliverables. Mitchell spoke with Chris Meyer about the complicated world of font licensing and how Font Shield works to clear away any confusion to make the process easier.

It would be simple if all font creators had the same licensing agreement, but they don’t. Everyone is different, and that can make it tricky for agencies and brands to navigate. “Above and beyond that, there are multiple models of licensing depending on how fonts are going to be used,” Mitchell said. “There’s desktop, web, digital ads, mobile apps, video, broadcasting, social media, server…the list goes on and on.”

In addition to this pool of confusion, is the recent announcement from Adobe ending their support of PostScript Type 1 fonts within their creative cloud platform. Postscript type fonts, created in the early 1980s, slowed creation in 1996 with the introduction of Open-Type fonts. But if someone owned Type 1 fonts, there wasn’t a necessity to switch over to Open-Face fonts—until now. While this change won’t significantly impact many companies, those still utilizing PostScript fonts will face a challenge when the cut-off occurs.

“Adobe apps will no longer see or recognize Type 1 fonts,” Mitchell said. “They won’t appear in the font menu. They won’t be able to use previously installed PostScript Type 1 fonts. So, creative choices and decisions on how to deal with this will have to be made.” Switching over to Open-Face fonts will bring some form of financial impact, and companies will need to ensure they have the proper licensing agreements in place.