It took forever, but it was worth it.

I spent about 3 hours last week culling and sorting my type library in Suitcase Fusion. I had gone through this process on my old PowerBook about 3 years ago, but after switching to an Intel Mac and a new office, I kept putting it off. Not only did I sort and categorize all my fonts, but I threw out a ton. You know, all those way out-crazy fonts that are free that really we’re never going to use, but they were free? Gone. I’m down to 2116 fonts in 1715 families. I could probably cull some more, but I’ll feel inadequate as a designer if my type library is too small.

So here’s a peek at the way I organized my fonts:




Statistically, I have:
618 OpenType fonts
586 PostScript fonts
902 TrueType fonts


I’ve only actually purchased about 20 or so fonts. The rest came from software installs (gotta’ love Adobe for that) or were available free (legally) online.

My next type purchase is probably going to be either FF Meta (I’m in the market for a new workhorse sans face) or Incognito (Just waiting for a logo project to come my way so I can get all jiggy with this font). I’d love to buy Mark's Proxima Nova, but I’ll have to wait for a big identity project to subsidize it.

I blame my mom for all this. She’s a designer as well, and I remember pouring through her old Letraset catalog and playing with rub-down type at the young age of 7. I knew what kerning, keylines and photostats were before I was in Jr. High.

I guess my grandfather is partly to blame as well. He was a printer and was constantly sending over boxes of paper and stuff for us to play with.