Concerns About Google Fonts on Adobe Fonts Service

[danpinho]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to open a discussion regarding the recent influx of Google Fonts on the Adobe Fonts service. As many of you may have noticed, there has been a significant increase in the number of Google Fonts available on the platform. While I understand the importance of having a diverse range of font options, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed with this trend.

My main concern is that Adobe, known for its premium creative tools, could potentially source and license more exclusive or premium fonts for its users. This move would not only enrich the service's offering but also provide added value to our subscriptions. Relying heavily on freely available Google Fonts seems to dilute the premium feel of Adobe's services, which we have come to expect and invest in.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this matter. Do you believe Adobe should focus on acquiring more unique and premium fonts to differentiate its service? Or do you see the integration of Google Fonts as a positive addition to the Adobe Fonts library?

Looking forward to your insights and discussion.

Best,

Daniel

[Bobby Henderson]

In one respect it does seem kind of weird for Adobe Fonts to include fonts from Google. Anyone can visit the Google Fonts website and download any of those typefaces as well as a bunch of others that aren't carried at Adobe Fonts.

On the other hand, it has been a sort of blessing for some of those typefaces to be available at Adobe Fonts. I have seen technical issues with some fonts downloaded direct from Google Fonts. On at least a couple or so occasions I've synced the same type families via Adobe Fonts and seen them work properly. I'm not sure why this is the case. It could be the two different fonts sites have different build versions of the fonts.

It would be nice if both the Google Fonts site and Adobe Fonts site included some technical info about the fonts, such as build version. Just like other kinds of computing software font files do get bug fixes from time to time. They sometimes get updated with new features too (more glyphs, character sets, etc).

I'd certainly like to see Adobe keep adding more commercial type families from various type foundries and type designers. I'm a bit worried about Monotype and its activities in recent years though. They could make it really hard for Adobe to add more typefaces or even continue to offer a bunch of the ones they still have. Monotype has bought up a lot of well known type foundries, especially lately. Monotype owns the most popular online stores for commercial type. I don't see 90% off introductory price deals at MyFonts.com anymore. Monotype appears to be steering type customers to use its own subscription fonts service.

[J E L]

Hi @danpinho, I wish Adobe would focus on acquiring more premium fonts, indeed. But I don't mind having the Google Fonts included, too. I'm curious to know the rate of acquisition on new fonts. For example, I wonder if is it something like 10 new premium fonts a month, or more like 10 a year?

[Bobby Henderson]

At first, I was not all that pleased Adobe was adding Google Fonts to the Adobe Fonts service. It seemed like an easy way to inflate the number of fonts available in the service.

But I have seen an upside to it. Some of the fonts downloaded direct from the Google Fonts web site can be pretty buggy. I've seen some of them do really odd things in certain rival graphics applications. In some cases I've been able to sync the same type family from Adobe Fonts and see that version work properly. Google does seem to be pretty good with releasing updates to their fonts. Having at least some of those type families available at Adobe Fonts can be a decent fail-safe.

I don't think Adobe has any consistent schedule on how often they add new fonts to the Adobe Fonts service. At minimum it seems like there is at least a couple or so new families added each month. Sometimes there is a flood of new fonts. They added a bunch of Asian-CJK fonts in the past few days.

[J E L]

I haven't had any problems yet with Google fonts, but I rarely use them except for WordPress sites I build. Even then, I tend to stick to the very few tried-and-true typefaces. I've been collecting fonts for so long, I know I have too many as it is, lol! I think you are right about the frequency not having any consistency. I don't get any notifications when new fonts are added. Is that something we can sign up for?

[Lumigraphics]

Its not a bad thing that Adobe is adding resources for its customer, as long as they are tested and vetted and adhere to licensing terms.