Dalton Maag offers studios 1,400 free typefaces

Type foundry Dalton Maag is giving creative agencies free access to their entire font library to use in their own, and even some client, projects.

Once approved, design studios and creative agencies have free use of the company’s FontPass platform. Launched earlier this year aimed at customers with diverse and changeable needs (like multiple sub-brands), FontPass includes 1,400 fonts across more than 60 families.

Studios can use the typefaces in their own branding, identity and websites, and in self-initiated projects. But they can also use them to create artwork for clients, provided they’re not sending them the font files, and in commercial projects and pitches as examples of typefaces the client might use.

“These creatives are our biggest advocates in the industry,” says Richard Bailey, Dalton Maag’s operations director. “They are people with extreme amounts of talent who understand design, and understand where type fits within design.”

Bailey hopes these creatives can help educate and inspire clients, who sometimes underestimate the importance of typography.

“I think clients are very happy to pay branding agencies seven figures to overhaul their brand and visual expression, and they’re looking at colours, and photography, and UX,” he says. “Then sometimes, type is an afterthought.”

This matters, he says, because when you “drill down” into people’s behaviours, they’re often most focused on typography. “You’ll glance at a photograph on a client website and you’ll be aware of their brand colours,” he says, “but what you’re consuming when you’re engaging with their content is typography.”

“If we can get more organisations to understand that investing in typography can carry a massive amount of their brand identity and personality, then that’s great for the industry, and I think it adds a huge amount of value for the client,” he explains.

The ultimate aim, Bailey admits, is to drive more licensing sales with big clients. “It’s not altruistic, it’s commercial. We want to provide maximum value so the market continues to trust us.”

And he says that any potential risks in the programme are very small, easily outweighed by the potential upsides.

“We have great relationships with creative agencies, and we don’t feel like they’re the sorts of people who are going to abuse it,” he says.

Most creative agencies aren’t massive, he points out, and so the cost of desktop licences for them all would be “negligible in the grand scheme of things.”

“The risk is completely offset by them specifying fonts for their client projects, whether it’s a short-term campaign, or a multinational company that has 10,000 seats and a million pageviews a month on their website,” Bailey says. “Then it’s absolutely worth it for us.”

At a time when the creative industries are battling various headwinds, Bailey thinks more companies should – and will – launch initiatives that help each other. Open conversations between businesses about where they see mutual value could become the norm.

“Smart companies understand that if you have long-term ambitions, there’s no room for get-rich-quick stuff,” Bailey says. “I think part of that is being generous with one another, and behaving with integrity.”

Design studios and creative agencies can apply for access here.