Monotype acquires Hoefler&Co | Hacker News Reader

Monotype acquires Hoefler&Co

typography.com

145 pointsmikedc33 comments

Somewhat related: the saga between Hoefler and former partner Frere-Jones, who Hoefler almost certainly attempted to (and perhaps successfully) screwed over.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3036423/type-stars-jonathan-hoef...

This story is almost seven years old. These guys settled their dispute and moved on. Frere Jones now has a very successful type company of his own. He's not exactly living in a van by the river

It's been decades since the Beatles broke up, but there's still people who (fairly or otherwise) nurse a grudge about it. Sure, nobody would ever claim H&FJ were "bigger than Jesus", but at least in a certain demographic they were pretty big.

Have they really put it behind them? Hoefler doesn't so much as acknowledge Frere-Jones in his post.

And one of Frere-Jones' type designers had this to say about the whole thing:

https://twitter.com/ninastoessinger/status/14382710868446822...

Can’t agree more with this tweet. It was amazing fonts directed by Frere-Jones that created almost all the value for H&F-J.

I’m FJ’s side in this whole saga, but you’re minimizing Jonathan Hoefler’s contributions a bit: it’s true that Frere-Jones made Gotham, but Hoefler has made many iconic typefaces as well. Hoefler Text, obviously, but my favorite is probably Champion Gothic (think “Straight Outta Compton”).

It’s not Wozniak/Jobs situation where one of them was a creative genius and the other a cold-blooded businessman: they’re both creative geniuses. One of them just screwed the other one over.

What a sad affair. Interviews and documentaries clearly demonstrating their relationship as partners, without a hierarchy. Then one baldly asserts his ownership rights, and the other realizes the naive trust he'd put in his colleague was vapor.

Doesn't square with the chronology below:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28560980

That's not an accurate chronology.

How so? Frere-Jones comes later, but becomes vital to the new state of the business. 15 years together!

See 37signals for another such example: design studio, but oh, software is where we shine, but I need this tech fellow as full partner.

The chronology doesn't really tell the full story. Hoefler made some stand out typefaces, but many of the commercial successes and culturally iconic fonts were designed by Frere-Jones by himself or in partnership with Hoefler. Gotham is the biggest example, but Whitney, Surveyor, Archer, Vitesse and others were either FJ or collaboration work.

It's quite fair to say that Hoefler would not be in the position he is today without Frere-Jones, and by many accounts, and even how Hoefler presented things in the press, they were a partnership. Even before they started officially working together, Hoefler was consulting Frere-Jones on ideas, such as on Knockout - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/arts/11iht-design11.html

It's not like Hoefler's foundry was a juggernaut when Frere-Jones began contributing to his work, or even when he joined the company. They had several success stories - but so did FJ prior to that - and both of their largest successes all came when they were working together.

Frere-Jones has his own company https://frerejones.com/

The (public) court documents, if anyone wants to read through them: https://www.gwern.net/docs/design/2014-650139-tobiasfrerejon...

There's some pretty spicy and entertaining comments in the various briefs and discussions. My own overall impression is that it looks extremely bad for Hoefler, and he probably settled because his best defense, after all of the emails and documents produced, was "I totally did defraud Frere-Jones, but the statute of limitations protects me", which is... a bad look and a bad reason to win.

Also of interest (and quite a bad look too when you know about the usual camaraderie in the type design community) "The Hoefler Type Foundry vs. Darden, Joshua" https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServlet...

It's fascinating (in a good way) to me that typographers are still around. On the surface, apart from IP licenses, it doesn't seem necessary, with perhaps the exception of marketing & advertising where a unique design is desired.

Yet when you peek under the hood, typography is a lot more than just typefaces, and often goes to the heart of readability and accessibility. A graphic designer might design the text for a logo, or even a typeface, but a professional typographer is so much more, and more nuanced.

It also seems like one of perhaps only a handful of trades that has been around centuries and yet did not have all of its fundamentals, in essence, changed by the shift to digital. It seems like all the digital world did was change it's implementation methods.

Its honestly a wonder that we - as humans - even recognize so many variations of our own letters and symbols such that we don't really notice the nuance of typography until particulars are pointed out to us

In my view, the best craft/design facilitates easy access to content or functionality without us even noticing its presence. It “just works”, unobtrusively. Typography had centuries to figure this out.

without us even noticing its presence

Agreed, I really only ever notice a font when it makes something hard to read.

Once worked on a website where they declared paying $10k/yr for a Helvetica licence was necessary and they didn't want to use a free alternative.

It's something that still perplexes me to this day...

A free alternative to their on-brand font? That's crazy in a lot of ways too...

The more you think about it, the more you realize "top" designers are a cirlejerk. They also think they're some messiah on a mission save the world.

At the same time regular people in the industry get screwed over and are paid peanuts.

I can't help but worry about Hoefler&Co's subscription service, cloud.typography. Monotype use to offer an affordable subscription called the Monotype Library Subscription. I still have it since, fortunately, they continue to provide the service to those who had signed up. But they no longer offer new sign-ups.

cloud.typography is affordable for personal/solo developer use ($99/year). The cheapest Monotype subscription plan is $7.5k/year. I worry that Monotype will eventually shut down cloud.typography, which will be a real shame if they don't provide some kind of affordable/non-enterprise alternative. These are some beautiful fonts. I would hate to see them end up behind a big paywall that only businesses can afford.

I'm really hoping they bring back some form of the Monotype Library Subscription.

The Monotype Library Subscription was awesome! I've been stubbornly holding onto my subscription but I'm starting to worry I might have to cancel it since finances are a bit tight for me at the moment. What a shame they stopped offering it. My only complaint was that the anti-piracy functionality in the SkyFonts program meant I couldn't get the fonts to work with TeX.

Wow, that is the end of an era. In some ways it is sad to see a successful independent foundry get absorbed, but on the other hand, it sounds like he is ready for a break, and this sounds like a good outcome for those involved.

So Hoefler makes out like a bandit while Frere-Jones gets totally shafted. Business as usual.

Yep! Still sad to see.

Confused. Monotype is PE-owned. Buying companies on the cheap and selling is classic PE logic. Monotype annual revenues were less than 1/10th the acquisition cost. Hoefler&Co had 5 employees and gross revenue was just over 625. Even if they sold for 10 times revenue, that's only $6M for 32 years of work.

Purportedly: 1. Hoefler started the company in 1989. 2. After 10 years, in 1999, Frere-Jones joined—as an employee. No way someone puts in 10 years and makes someone else 50/50 unless they put up capital. 3. After 13 years, in 2002, Hoefler's wife became CEO. Likely that Hoefler and her were the largest shareholders. 4. After 16 years, in 2005, rebranded to include Frere-Jones. Pretty generous! 5. After 9 years rebranded and 15 years working together, in 2014, Frere-Jones sues Hoefler for $20M, claiming the fonts were worth $3M each. They settle after nine months. Frere-Jones immediately starts his own company. 6. After 32 years, in 2021, Hoefler sells and decides he wants to do something different.

How can you say he made out like a bandit? I would understand saying that if he started the company with Frere-Jones, sold for hundreds of millions in four years, and managed to keep all of it for himself.

Hoefler’s gross revenue was $625 thousand ? Sounds impossible. What’s your source?

Hey, if the The Lord of the Rings movies can lose money, as New Line asserted to Peter Jackson when they denied him royalties, then a New York type foundry can surely operate for a couple decades on just a little more than a half million.

Frere-Jones designed most of the fonts that put HFJ the map and made them what they are today. Including Gotham that was used in Obama's campaign and shoot this foundry to stardom. All based on a handshake agreement between H and FJ made when they started working together and an understanding they were equal partners.

H massively screwed FJ. That's not debatable.

You’re missing key information on (2.)

Frere-Jones DID put up capital… intellectual capital. He transferred the rights to famous typefaces he had designed, including Whitney, to the company with the understanding that he would be full partner.

Hoefler shafted F-J so hard it’s unbelievable. The foundry’s reputation was built on Gotham which F-J designed. There’s no other way to see it.

This is key information I missed all those years ago, thanks.

I just remember feeling bad for FJ because something felt off about the whole thing.

Hoefler Text is one of my favourite fonts.

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