Adobe Acquires Web Typography Innovator Typekit

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/adobe-acquires-web-typography-innovator-typekit-2011-10-03

by timf • 15 years ago

86 27 15 years ago

trebor• 15 years ago

I, for one, am shocked that I didn't see this one coming. Adobe has a great suite of fonts, and with HTML5 and the open web killing flash they'll need some new thinks to keep in the market.

cowboyhero• 15 years ago

Congrats to Mr Veen et al, but ... Ugh. Typekit was a great service.

I have little faith that Adobe won't completely screw it up.

gigawatt• 15 years ago

I'm with you. Nothing under Adobe's tent remains as perfectly simple as Typekit. That said, there appears to be hope that Typekit will be the exception: https://twitter.com/#!/jasonsantamaria/status/12090794772648...

timjahn2• 15 years ago

My thoughts exactly. Sad to see innovation die for no reason.

daeken• 15 years ago

Innovation isn't dying "for no reason." If it dies, it's in pursuit of a payoff for what was most likely a whole lot of work by everyone involved. For a community largely made up of entrepreneurs, it sometimes baffles me how resistant people are to acquisitions of their favorite companies -- this is part of business (and a good one, at that!).

tptacek4• 15 years ago

Count me among the (presumably few) HN'ers that think this is going to be a win for web typography. The "cool kids" know who Typekit is, but the mainstream trusts Adobe (look how much crappy Flash there is out there solving problems that Typekit solves elegantly).

And whatever you may think of Adobe- the- company, it seems to me they've been an impeccable steward of digital typography. They clearly care about it more than any other major software vendor.

aaronblohowiak2• 15 years ago

I think Adobe has a better chance of getting the mainstream foundries aboard. If you think the music industry has been resisting modernisation, the type foundries are practically Amish.

antidaily2• 15 years ago

I couldn't get over the pricing. I'm not doing a yearly subscription based on pageviews to use some nice fonts on my site. Just me?

atourgates• 15 years ago

I think their pricing becomes much more compelling at the portfolio level. $4/mo is completely reasonable for web designers building sites - as is their Performance pricing for more pageviews.

Though, I wouldn't be shocked to see Adobe jack those prices up. They've never been keen at competing on price.

antidaily2• 15 years ago

$4/mo is definitely reasonable. However, I would much rather pay double and host the fonts myself. I realize that's the tradeoff with the type foundries, but for client work, I think I would get a lot of pushback billing them monthly for a design they paid for a year ago.

rbarooah• 15 years ago

It seems to me that pageviews is relatively transparent. How do you think it should have been priced?

mtgentry• 15 years ago

As a designer I think it's a fantastic value. Even at the high end, $100 a year is a no brainer. They have Futura as a web font for christ's sake, FUTURA!

nhangen• 15 years ago

More innovation dying before it gets the chance to thrive. I thought Typekit needed a few more years on its own to become prolific, and though I don't fault them for selling, I think this blows.

jontas• 15 years ago

If this gets adobe fonts into typekit's library, that would be great.

I just really don't want the pricing to change, even if it means no adobe fonts.

latitude• 15 years ago

Now. One thing to keep in mind before everyone cringes hearing Adobe.

Adobe has always been a very web friendly foundry. They permit things like Cufon use under their standard EULA that covers hundreds if not thousands of fonts. Few years ago, when asking a foundry for a web license would typically produce "La-la-la-la. Can't hear you. Web doesn't exist.", it was unbelievably liberal. It wasn't a fluke either, it was an intentional decision driven from the inside by those from the font group.

In other words, if there is a larger company that I would like to see acquire Typekit, that would be Adobe. They may have screwed few things here and there, but they totally get the webfonts.

Adobe Acquires Web Typography Innovator Typekit

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