How Monotype turns selling fonts into daylight robbery

(EDIT 24/3/26: The Spotify statement has been revised to specify that the font change pertains to the logo. The Netflix Sans statement has also been updated, as the typeface creation predates Gotham's acquisition by Monotype.)

To explain why I call Monotype "robbers", let me start with something that struck me as very odd, and it involves a country.

Back in 2022, I went on a deep dive into how Singapore created a logo for its 50th year of independence. It was an expensive project; they paid not only for the logo design, but also millions of dollars to plaster it everywhere as part of the celebrations.

Last year, they did the same thing for their 60th anniversary. The logo almost looks the same, except for one thing. They changed the font.

On the surface, that might sound like a trivial update. Companies change typefaces all the time to "refresh" their branding. But this change is anything but ordinary, because:

(1) The font on the updated logo (called Metropolis) is regarded as "inferior in quality" to the font Gotham (used in the SG50 logo).

(2) The font company that owns Gotham (Hoefler & Co.) threatened legal action against Metropolis' creator for making a typeface that looked too similar.

So why would the Singapore government decide to switch from a well‑made, established commercial font to a free font that has been publicly criticised and legally pressured?

There are no definitive answers. But it isn't hard to guess that the answer involves money.

And probably a filthy lot of it.

Gotham: In the Hands of Bad People?

Gotham was designed by Tobias Frere-Jones and released in 2000 through Jonathan Hoefler's type foundry (now known as Hoefler & Co.). It quickly became one of the most widely used typefaces in the world, appearing in major corporate branding, blockbuster film posters, and public signage globally.

In 2014, Frere-Jones left Hoefler & Co. following a major fallout with Hoefler. When Hoefler initially invited him to join the company, he had allegedly promised a 50–50 ownership split, but that arrangement never materialised. As a result, Hoefler remained the sole owner of Hoefler & Co., and Gotham stayed under his control.

Fast‑forward to 2020: Hoefler & Co. sent a lawyer to Chris Simpson, designer of the free font Metropolis, to demand that he remove Metropolis from the internet for alleged plagiarism. The accusation itself is debatable, but faced with the threat of a legal battle, Simpson backed down and made Metropolis private.

Here's the thing: Gotham is a paid font; Metropolis was completely free and open‑source. It would make sense for Hoefler to be concerned if Metropolis were significantly cutting into Gotham's revenue.

Frankly speaking, an average person wouldn't care about that. They'll happily download Metropolis for free, use it in Word, and move on. As long as the text looks "good enough", they're satisfied.

But that's what makes the Singapore case so bizarre. We're not talking about a student trying to save money on fonts.

We're talking about a wealthy, first‑world government choosing to switch from a robust paid font to a free one that was already called out for being derivative and lower‑quality.

What's going on? Did Hoefler make an empty promise to Singapore as well?

The 'Bad People'

Here's where things get interesting: it's not just about Hoefler anymore.

A year after the legal threat against Simpson, Hoefler & Co. was acquired by Monotype*, the giant that owns MyFonts.com and many of the most widely used typefaces in the world, including Helvetica, Times New Roman, and Futura. From that point on, anyone wanting to license Gotham would have to do it through Monotype.

*Monotype is enormous. They have bought so many well‑known foundries that you practically need a chart just to keep track of who they own.

So, that's great! Gotham is still available. You can still buy it and use it in your projects.

But in practice, things are far from normal:

• One company was pushed into paying more than $30,000 per year to license* the Monotype font Avenir, compared to an earlier price of roughly 4,000 dollars per year. That's about a 7.5‑fold increase.
• A Japanese game company that had been paying around 380 dollars per year for a font was accosted by a "new" licensing cost that may be $20,500 dollars per year for the same font**, more than 50 times the original price**.

*To license a font simply means paying for the right to use it in specific ways. If you only want to use the font in your own PowerPoint slides, for example, you might just buy a desktop or personal license. But as soon as your use case touches branding, advertising, or large‑scale distribution, the licensing model becomes far more complex and expensive.

For more information regarding licenses, you can read this article.

Why Such a Price Hike?!

Typically, when businesses want to license a font for commercial use (like advertising or branding) they have to pay the font company extra.

The problem is, there are no standardised rules for pricing or licensing formats, so each company does its own thing. This often gets confusing… which is exactly why this meme exists:

You may not understand the entirety of what the above licensing conditions mean, but I want you to first focus on the last segment (with the completed clown makeup), as that's what Monotype is doing:

If you buy font licenses from MyFonts, you'll notice that a one-time desktop license (for a single user) costs about the same as a webfont license* that only lasts one year.

*A webfont license lets you legally use a font on a website, so any text displayed there appears in that font.

This means that if you want to keep using the webfont for another year, you have to pay the same price again, essentially renewing it at the cost of an additional desktop license.

Additionally, if more than 10,000 people view your website each month, the webfont license becomes more expensive.

That means a designer using a Monotype font on a website now has to:

• Pay for that one font every year, much like an annual subscription.
• Watch their monthly page views to make sure they aren't violating the license terms on top of their other work.

"At that point, it's a lot of hassle for just a font," you might think. You might also ask: why not offer a "use forever" license; a one-time fee that avoids revisiting this year after year? Monotype would like you to know:

…which means:

Unfortunately, Monotype's clownery doesn't stop there.

The Corporate Rug Pull

To circle back on the Japanese game company, their font was originally licensed through a foundry called Fontworks under a scheme called LETS (Leading Edge Type Solution). LETS was designed specifically for video game developers and allowed them to use certain fonts in games at a manageable yearly rate of about $386.

Then Monotype acquired Fontworks.

After the acquisition, the old, game‑friendly licensing structure was on the threat of being evaporated. Monotype and Fontworks, while made provisions to extend the license for their existing customers till early 2026, have yet to provide an equivalent license but have announced to be working on it.

While this still gives a glint of hope for Japanese game developers, netizens in Japan are skeptical of a positive outcome in lieu of what's going behind Monotype, which includes…

AI Technology 🙄

Monotype has been very forefront about using AI in their website and products, so it isn't beyond them to utilise AI in other ways which they wouldn't have explicitly stated.

Mayur Pahwa, an Monotype employee managing cybersecurity and AI ethics, reveals that layoffs far larger than officially disclosed had taken place within the company, and attributes it to their AI investment, which they "burned millions but got nothing" out of it.

Additionally, on November 14, 2025, Ameel Khan (a social media manager at Transurban) shared on his blog how Monotype attempted to gouge font licensing fees from the company he is working at.

Knowing that the company did not use any Monotype fonts, Khan conducted a thorough backend check to identify the alleged fonts, only to discover that the two fonts Monotype claimed were not even owned by them:

• The company used a font called Credit Card (by K-Type), which coincidentally shares the same font file name as Monotype's Credit Card font. Yet, Monotype claimed it as if it were their own.
• One of the company's websites used Proxima Nova, but the font family had been licensed through Adobe. Although Monotype had previously distributed the typeface, it ceased doing so after the designer, Mark Simonson, sold the rights to Proxima Nova (along with his entire font library) to The Type Founders*.

*The Type Founders manages multiple type foundries (including Mark Simonson) and licenses some of their fonts in Adobe.

Khan suspects Monotype may have been relying on automated "AI scanning" to detect supposed infringements; essentially a bot crawling websites and flagging font use based on unreliable signals. And we all know how flawed AI technology still is today.

The Guerilla Emails

Monotype didn't just contact Khan when trying to dispute with the company. For two weeks, they reached out to a dozen or more employees across different departments, attempting to intimidate at least one person into paying the licensing fees, even going so far as to use LinkedIn to make contact.

Had Khan or the company not responded, it is plausible that Monotype would have continued harassing them. This is evident from a separate case in which another business was pressured to pay licensing fees for using Arial and Helvetica, fonts that are commonly bundled with macOS devices and Windows computers (for the former) for commercial use.

In one particularly troubling email to a different client, Monotype proposed an unusual negotiation: they asked the company to license a font through Monotype instead of the original licensor, even offering to make their "old fonts into custom ones" through retracing and slapping the client company's name on it.*

*[Redrawing a typeface does not violate US law](http://Redrawing a font or typeface does not violate US law. While Monotype is legally entitled to do so, it remains highly unethical for them to lure clients into dependency by offering to remake fonts, positioning themselves as the new licensor for ongoing profit.). While Monotype is legally entitled to do so, it remains highly unethical for them to lure clients into dependency by offering to remake fonts, positioning themselves as the new licensor for ongoing profit.

Put all of this together, and a pattern emerges. Monotype can charge what it does because:

1. They write their own (licensing) rules.
2. They acquire competitors and overwrite existing licenses with their own.
3. They target unsuspecting companies with flimsy evidence of font license violations, then pressure them with intimidating, legal-sounding emails.
4. They use lawyers (and possibly automated enforcement) to squeeze independent designers and foundries that stand in their way.

The Implication

With that context, we can ask a more informed question: what might have happened between Monotype and the Singapore government during possible negotiations over Gotham?

Could Monotype have viewed this as an opportunity to demand an exorbitant fee, knowing that a nation adopting their font would guarantee immense and unavoidable visual exposure?

This is not far-fetched speculation. Companies that once relied on Gotham have since moved away from it in favour of custom-built typefaces, likely to avoid restrictive and costly licensing models:

• Spotify used Gotham in its logo from 2013 to 2024, then worked with Dinamo to create its proprietary typeface, Spotify Mix, which replaced it in the logo.
• Similarly, while the font is still owned by Hoefler & Co., Netflix used Gotham from around 2014 and 2018, before commissioning its own custom typeface, Netflix Sans, from Dalton Maag. The switch was allegedly capable of saving Netflix "millions of dollars a year," although Hoefler disputes that his company licenses fonts at such a price point.

In both cases, the shift to custom typefaces reflects the same priorities: long-term control, greater flexibility, and insulation from potentially aggressive licensing changes.*

*Yes, both Spotify and Netflix are massive corporations with their own questionable practices. Even so, neither chose to remain tied indefinitely to an increasingly costly licensing ecosystem.

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Fontboss

On Reddit and in design communities, people have been criticising Monotype's tactics for years. The company could have taken this feedback and redesigned its licenses into something sustainable and fair: clear terms, reasonable pricing, and a structure that rewards both type designers and users.

However, they just don't care.

Monotype has expanded primarily by acquiring type foundries and font rights, but it has struggled to develop original, market-leading products or services with sustained demand.

In 2019, Monotype itself was acquired by private equity firm HGGC. Since then, Mayur Pahwa mentioned that HGGC has tried to sell Monotype multiple times. Potential buyers however reportedly viewed Monotype less as a growth business than as a bundle of assets (its font rights) so negotiations fell through. Monotype's push into AI seems to have been an attempt to change that narrative, but it appears to have failed as well, contributing to the employee layoffs.

If the company is under financial pressure, it's not surprising that it would resort to whatever tactics it can to claw revenue back: making licenses overly convoluted, focusing on profit over customer protection, and using its market power to extract every last cent from users who don't have the time, expertise, or bargaining leverage to fight back.

What Can We As Consumers Do

So what can we as consumers do?

Do not support Monotype. Do not buy their fonts and let them cheat our money this way.

Buy from reputable independent type foundries instead, like Oh no Type Company, Klim Type Foundry, David Jonathan Ross, HEX, or Okay Type, to name some on top of my head. Use the Type Foundry Directory to see the different licensing models foundries have that caters to your needs.

If you can't afford to buy, there are still professional free fonts out there that you can use without causing you any legal repercussions in the years to come. Google Fonts is a start, but venture out and take a look at Collletttivo, Use & Modify, ANRT, and other libre font libraries, especially those that provides fonts with an Open Font License. These fonts are typically free to use with no monetary conditions involved, and they are free to modify for your specific project needs.

Conclusion

Perhaps Singapore used Metropolis instead of Gotham to make a statement; to signal a rejection of font and type hegemony. I can't say.

What is clear, however, is that the font market has changed dramatically over the past decade, especially with the deep integration of digital technology into everyday life, and Monotype has leveraged that shift in ways many would consider problematic.

Although Monotype has existed for more than 140 years and successfully transitioned from metal type to digital distribution, it no longer operates simply as a type publisher. It has become, in many ways, a consolidated asset portfolio, one whose value is amplified and traded by investors. In the process, licensing structures have grown increasingly complex, and revenue strategies increasingly aggressive. While these practices may be legally defensible on paper, they often raise serious ethical concerns.

At the same time, growing online awareness of Monotype's licensing practices suggests that consumers and businesses are becoming more cautious. And this creates a different problem.

In an article for It's Nice That, Elizabeth Goodspeed criticises the rise of custom typefaces commissioned by studios seeking to avoid perpetual licensing. Many of these fonts, she argues, are underdeveloped; marred by poor kerning, limited language support, amateurish detailing, and, at times, redundancy when they resemble "a slightly worse version of something that already exists."

But it doesn't have to be this way. Independent foundries today offer exceptional typefaces with transparent, fair licensing models. Thoughtful clients can select high-quality branding fonts from them without compromising standards or pressuring designers to rush out inferior custom work.

Consumers also have the option of commissioning modifications to existing typefaces from their original foundries to meet specific needs. That is fundamentally different from retracing or replicating a typeface purely to circumvent licensing.

So yes: choose good typefaces. Choose fair licensing. And choose designers and foundries who value both craft and integrity.