#25 - Transparency Recap
Money money dirty money.
I was invited to talk about Bastardo Grotesk at a typography talk recently and one thing I ended up leaving out of the presentation was money.
It is one of my special interests, not in a greedy way, nor in a want-to-live-in-luxury way either tbh. More of a I’m hyper aware of how the world works and we live in a society so I want to find the trick to not work my ass for the rest of my life just to barely exist. YGM?
It’s a very privileged thing to say, to be like MoNeY dOeSnT mAkE yOu HaPpY. We are not above money. Unless you want to live outside of society, have a trust fund or whatever, money is the thing you need to exchange for goods, experiences and access. Simple as that. Or at least, it’s how I see it.
So as many who follow me might know, I’m on a mission to find a way to make passive income cover the bulk of my expenses to be able to slow down and be more selective with my time and how I use it.
The thing with passive income is… it needs to be active before it’s passive. I think a lot of people get it the wrong way and imagine this being some magic thing where you post a Canva template and make 10k. And then when it doesn’t work out like that, just give it up. It doesn’t work like that. It might work for someone who already has a huge following, but the algo is shit and most of us don’t have that much reach anyway. So you need to build the product, and also create a marketing strategy and material to promote it. Passive income is possible but takes a lot of initial investment.
And if we’re really honest, in this field specifically, I don’t think “passive” means you do NOTHING. It’s more of a “while I was on holiday with my family, I made £300 in licenses.” It is detaching the day’s worth of work from the money to be made. They are still related, but in a different way. I think it’s important to be real about the passivity of income in the design field as this being a visual, trending and volatile field, you cannot just create a thing and toss it in the wild.
I will still have to produce material and market the product in order for it to profit. And to profit it needs to reach the people that want it. I’m currently working an unholy amount of hours on these things. Creating promotional material, keeping archives/ social media/sites updated, scavenging for cool uses etc etc ..
BUT…There hopefully is a tipping point where there’s enough material being shared, printed and created by others – and this will not be necessary. Paul Renner is not there producing social media material for Futura is he.
ANYYYYYWAY
Where stuff like a mockup or asset can take a few hours and pay for itself back “quickly”, what about fonts?
A typeface will take hundreds of hours to be designed, kerned, engineered etc, so is it really a passive income-able asset? Yes and no.
If I look at my catalogue as it stands now, taking into consideration the typefaces active for at least 1 year, here’s a recap.
There is a bit of a glitch in the Fabio stats as that was a large license for a customization, but I think it’s worth including as that’s something that can happen.
If we look at these, both Bastardo and Fabio have paid for themselves, taking into consideration all fees, subscriptions and taxes. Possibly Margo, as it’s only one weight.
I talk a lot with fellow designers about the role of marketplaces or distributors. I’m not a fan of XL distributors, I don’t think they give back enough and they lack care and curation. And it’s not a secret I’ve been with Typedepartment for a while now, which is a reality much smaller, and therefore much more hands on.
But if I had to give a reco, is keep your best seller for yourself, which is what I did with Bastardo. I noticed early on that it being the most versatile, it was the one getting the more interest, and so it is worth keeping on my site exclusively and retain 100% (90% calculating various fees) and distribute the rest of the catalogue as much as possible.
Could I have lived off type for these past 4 years?
NO.
Could I live off type right now, with some 10 typefaces out and published?
NOT IN LONDON in my specific circumstance, but yes, probably I could start to make it work.
Are fonts finally somehow regularly paying my bills?
In the past few, they actually did! Which is mad <3
I hope this gives some insight, clarity or perspective into the big dirty thing no one ever seem to talk about but we all lowkey wonder about. It feels weird and vulnerable. But why? It’s just money we all make it and spend it. I don’t get the secrecy and shame.
Anyway if you’re still reading, mate sorry I’m really bad at being concise.
XO
G