Organizing fonts provides several advantages that contribute to efficient and effective font management, especially in design and creative projects. Here are some key advantages:
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Improved Workflow Efficiency: Organized fonts allow designers to quickly locate and use the desired typefaces, reducing the time spent searching for appropriate fonts and enhancing the overall design workflow.
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Consistent Branding: Organizing and using specific fonts consistently across various projects, organizations can maintain a unified and recognizable brand identity, reinforcing brand recognition and recall.
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Enhanced Creativity: Organized font libraries enable designers to explore and experiment with different typefaces more easily, promoting creative diversity in design projects.
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Reduced Errors: Proper font organization minimizes the risk of using incorrect or unauthorized fonts, reducing the likelihood of errors in design projects and preventing legal or branding issues.
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Compliance with Licensing: Organized font libraries facilitate tracking font licenses, ensuring that fonts are used in accordance with licensing agreements, avoiding copyright infringement, and potential legal consequences.
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Effective Collaboration: When fonts are organized, collaborating team members can access and utilize the same fonts, ensuring design consistency and minimizing the chances of font-related discrepancies.
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Simplified Font Updates: Keeping fonts organized makes it easier to manage updates and replacements for outdated or problematic fonts, ensuring that projects continue to use the latest and most suitable typefaces.
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Faster Project Iterations: With organized fonts, designers can quickly iterate on design concepts by easily swapping fonts in and out of projects, allowing for faster design revisions.
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Resource Efficiency: Knowing which fonts are available and appropriate for specific projects, designers can avoid unnecessary font acquisitions or downloads, saving both time and storage space.
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Facilitated Font Discovery: Well-organized font libraries make it easier to explore and discover new fonts, helping designers find the perfect typeface for specific design intents.
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Ease of Backup and Recovery: Organized fonts can be systematically backed up, making it simpler to recover fonts in case of data loss or system failures.
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Smoother Handoffs: When handing-off projects to clients or other design professionals, organized font libraries ensure that fonts are easily transferable and compatible across different systems.
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Scalability: As the number of fonts used in various projects grows, maintaining organized font libraries becomes increasingly important to manage font diversity and prevent clutter.
In essence, organizing fonts streamlines design processes, reduces issues, enhances collaboration, and ensures compliance with licensing agreements, contributing to more efficient and successful creative endeavors.
BEST PRACTICE - Before organizing your Libraries of fonts in Connect, please consider how Connect shares fonts with your team(s).
Connect shares fonts at the Library level and not at the Set level. Please visit our page on Managing Font Libraries for more information on how sharing is made available to your users prior to organizing your fonts in Connect.
Here are a few ways we recommend customers create and organize fonts Libraries effectively in Connect:
1. Client / Project Based Libraries - (Highly Recommended)
- We highly recommend creating Client and Project based specific Libraries and sets within your font repository.
- By creating by Client and Project
- It keeps fonts related to a particular Client and Project separate from becoming part of a general collection.
- Simplifies Searching.
- Creates ease of activation for creatives when working with specific clients and projects.
- By creating by Client and Project
- When working on multiple projects for the same client / organization, consider using sub-folders ( or sets ) within each of your Client Library. For example:
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Client (Library A)
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- Project (set) A
- Project (set) B
- Project (set) C
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Client (Library B)
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- Project (set) A
- Project (set) B
- Project (set) C
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Client (Library A)
2. Product and Project Based Libraries - (Recommended)
- Create dedicated Libraries for storing all your organizations font files in centralized repositories. We see these types of libraries typically for:
- Organizations who do not deal with or use external vendors, client or other external creative agencies or organizations.
- Projects are typically owned and serviced directly by the organization.
- Font Libraries are typically based on your organizations needs usually similar to the Client and Project recommendation. In this case, Libraries are the product and the project is a subfolder of the Library. For Example:
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Product (Library A)
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- Project (set) A
- Project (set) B
- Project (set) C
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Product (Library B)
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- Project (set) A
- Project (set) B
- Project (set) C
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Product (Library A)
3. Organization(al) Repositories - (Recommended for some Organizations)
- Organize fonts into Libraries based on the location of your creative teams.
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Organizational Location(s)
- East, West, State, City, HQ, Satellite location... Etc...
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Organizational Location(s)
4. Font Type, Classification or Font Descriptions - (Not Recommended)
- Grouping fonts based on similar characteristics like serif or sans-serif width style and intended use (body text, headings, logos, etc.).
- Create subcategories within larger categories to further refine your font organization.
- Font Descriptions - Like decorative, sans, script... Etc.
5. Font Selection and Licensing - (Not Recommended)
- Create groups to ensure you have the necessary licensing rights for the fonts you plan to use.
- Use additional Libraries to organize these licensed fonts by Project, Organization, Product or Customer names.
6. Font Name(s) - (Not Recommended)
- Use the fonts name(s) to create a naming convention for your font files. This can help you quickly identify and locate specific fonts using an alphabetical list
- You can also organize deeper using sub-folders with additional information such as font family weight and style.
7. Font Duplicates and Font Versions - (Not Recommended)
- If duplicate fonts exist, consider creating a Library with a distinct name to avoid confusion with these fonts.
- Duplicates fonts contain the same names as others only differing by the fonts Type (OpenType, TrueType and PostScript). Or, by version number - 1.00 vs 1.01
- Labeling these fonts will allow users to find and use the correct fonts for a project if they are maintained in an area that is easily identified.
Additional Tips
Perform Regular Audits
- Periodically review your font collection and move fonts that are rarely used or no longer align with your design needs to Libraries that might not be visible to others in your organization or labeled correctly letting them know these are not for use or quarantined.
- This helps prevent your collections from becoming overwhelming and disorganized.
Backup or Cloud Store your Fonts
- Regularly back up your font collection to prevent data loss.
- Utilizing Connect’s cloud storage to ensure access to your fonts from different devices.