Why Apple, Google, and other big tech companies create their own fonts

guest · Dec 30, 2019

Why Apple, Google, and other big tech companies create their own fonts
December 29, 2019
https://mashable.com/article/tech-company-fonts/

Samarskaya told me tech companies’ growing interest in custom typefaces is partly related to the evolution of display technology
But technology didn’t just expand design options for typographers; it also expanded their audience. With the evolution of mobile technology and the internet also came globalization, and the need to cater to global audiences.

"When you’re dealing with this kind of global landscape, you get into localization concerns," Samarskaya said. "If this country is operating in Thailand, or Georgia, or wherever else, all of a sudden you also have to support all those additional scripts."
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As companies expand to serve users globally, font licensing fees also become a cause for concern, Samarskaya told me. For example, before Netflix transitioned to its custom typeface in 2018, it had been paying type design agency Hoefler & Co. millions of dollars a year to use Gotham — the same typeface used by Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
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But for the most part, custom typefaces are used to amplify and reinforce a company’s identity.

For example, Youtube said it made YouTube Sans "quirky, expressive, simple and bold, just like the platform it calls home." Similarly, Google said Product Sans combines the "childlike simplicity of schoolbook letter printing" and "the mathematical purity of geometric forms" to become "Googly" — a symbol of the company's playful, experimental personality and technological finesse.

But ultimately, Samarskaya says typography is a "living, evolving culture" that develops alongside technology, and as a result, globalization.
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Why Apple, Google, and other big tech companies create their own fonts

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