Why I Changed My Heading Font: A Cautionary Tale
About a month ago, I got a weird email in my inbox that seemed like a scam, claiming to be from the font foundry Connery Fagen. It was odd especially because it was from a third party known as The Type Founders (I won’t link to them, as I don’t want to give them the backlink) and was accusing me of using one of their fonts without a license.
I knew that was completely impossible, since as a former design agency owner, I don’t play around when it comes to licensing.
But, of course, I checked my records and I had indeed purchased several licenses for this font that I use on my website, including a web version from Creative Market in 2020 (there was another purchase in 2019 for another version but I was worried my license wasn’t adequate—I don’t recall the exact context, but it seemed important at the time).
You can see the screenshot of my receipt below.
I’ve redacted my card info and my order number.
I assumed that the font creator just has a records issue (it happens, though it’s not really acceptable in this kind of business) and sent them a quick note that the reason they didn’t have my in their database was that I purchased by fonts from Creative Market. I assumed we’d be done.
Clearly, I assumed wrong.
Connary Fagan continued to hassle me, and when I started digging in, I discovered that they’d pulled their fonts from Creative Market and had sent similarly harassing messages to many of my friends from the design world. Many of my friends had licensed Quincy, a very popular font, and were scrambling to find receipts and prove they’d purchased the typeface. (No reputable designer uses unlicensed fonts—it’s a legal risk no one would take.)
To make matters worse, I discovered that this is common amongst larger font foundries—the makers of Proxima Nova, for example, are infamous for shaking down past buyers to try to convert them into their subscription service, as well as folks who license the fonts via Adobe. (The Reddit posts about this issue are endless! It definitely sent me down a rabbit hold.) The entire situation is really unsettling, and it was horrible to read about how many small businesses were effectively paying twice for their fonts because of fears of being sued.
Basically, licensing fonts for your brand is a much messier quagmire than you’d expect!
I ended up complaining to Creative Market, since that’s who I purchased the font from, but it turns out this foundry has pulled their fonts and therefore there is no recourse for past buyers, which is unfortunate. It feels very unethical that vendors on the platform can pull their products and we’re left with no options.
On principle, I decided I did not want to give Connary Fagen and their font any more exposure via my site.
I often get asked about the font I was using, and I felt that this company didn’t deserve to be recommended, since they were so rude, disorganized, and unpleasant. So, now I’m using a free Google font that’s “good enough” for now. I’m doing a major brand overhaul this fall, so a stop-gap is find.
With all that being said, I do believe it’s time for us to really think about how we license fonts, since this is clearly a widespread problem akin to the accessibility scams going around a few years ago (to be clear, accessibility is mission critical, but these lawsuits benefit attorneys and no one else).
Moving forward, here are the guidelines I’ll follow when it comes to purchasing fonts:
Purchasing fonts directly from designers, not Creative Market or similar, so the onus for record keeping is on them, not me;
Ensuring that any font foundry has a clear inclusion statement and is aligned with my values;
Carefully reading all font designers’ policies to ensure that licenses can’t change on a whim; and
Looking for Google fonts as a “first line” to avoid messes like this all together.
I’m chalking up this mess with Connary Fagen and their font as a lesson learned, and I hope it’s helpful to others who are dealing with these annoying issues that are no fault of their own.
