Adobe Fonts

Question

I am using both Illustrator and Photoshop, and I am surprised by the lack of font families provided in the Adobe subscription--things should expand and not contract--e.g. Kristen ITC is not a serious graphic font, while there is neither Helvetica nor Akzidenz Grotesk available for users. Even the blackface (old English/Gothic) fonts are gone.

Adobe seems to have lost its way in the fonts, e.g. Source Sans, Ebrima (is it seriphed? sans seriphed?) Is Adobe taking it seriously? By the looks of the typefaces, they are filler and seem to be saving $$$ on licensing while offering fonts I wouldn't use for a diner menu.

The software is great (not stable on the cloud, but functionally great in general), but the business needs to get serious.

Bobby Henderson · Answer

Are you aware of the Monotype foundry and its activities over the past several or more years? I'm only mentioning them because of some of the typefaces you named.

Monotype has acquired numerous type foundries whose collections cover many of the most popular typefaces of all time. Adobe Fonts has a limited selection of typefaces from Monotype and its subsidiary foundries. But Adobe can't offer up everything Monotype has, especially when Monotype has its own competing fonts subscription service.

Helvetica? Linotype owned the rights to that family for a long time. IIRC Linotype had the rights to Helvetica when the very popular Helvetica Neue family was released in the 1980's. Then Monotype acquired Linotype in 2006. The more recent Helvetica Now family was developed by Monotype. It's a (mostly) great type family. My only complaint is the variable version of Helvetica Now has a width axis that only goes from regular to condensed. Where are the wide styles? That's one thing the "neue" cuts have that the "now" cuts are lacking.

Akzidenz Grotesk? That's actually a type family that was bundled with Adobe Illustrator over 30 years ago. The Berthold type foundry distributed it. The fonts sold from Berthold had a "BQ" thing included in the font names; the fonts bundled with Adobe applications had a "BE" suffix applied. Anyway, Berthold is another company Monotype absorbed (in 2022).

Monotype also recently bought Hoefler & Co., best known for Gotham. The guy who designed Gotham has some of his other type creations available via Adobe Fonts (Interstate is one example). Gotham itself got locked away by his ex-partner via a legal dispute and ugly falling out. Then that guy sold the works to Monotype in 2021.

Monotype now owns the URW type foundry, which had its own huge collection of typefaces. ITC, Letraset, Bitstream and numerous others are under the Monotype umbrella now.

Monotype also bought some of the most popular online font stores. They own the MyFonts web site. Monotype owns Fonts.com. They also own the FontShop web site. Monotype controls the buying of fonts to such a degree that some type designers have revolted and pulled their fonts from those web sites, choosing to sell them directly or via sites not controlled by Monotype. The Adobe Fonts service has some type families you won't find at the MyFonts store.

While it might seem like Adobe is the big bad monopoly, they're an underdog of sorts in the type field with the way Monotype is throwing its weight around. Adobe still does much to impact the trends of digital type technology via the font standards it supports in its applications. Nevetheless, people are drawn to using specific typefaces if they have access to them. Monotype is a bigger gate-keeper in that regard.

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