How to find and upload fonts for customizing your artwork in Penny Black, along with understanding the necessary licenses for commercial fonts.
Introduction
Penny Black allows you to upload an unlimited number of fonts to use in your artwork, making this the essential first step in personalising your designs on the platform.
You may already have your company’s branded fonts and their files. If you don’t, you can find these from a variety of sources, like Google Fonts, which offers a wide selection of typefaces under open licenses for your use.
Uploading
The Penny Black platform requires fonts to be in either an OTF or TTF file format. These are the most common formats on the web for fonts.
After clicking Artwork from the main menu, click the FONTS button in the top right:
The fonts listing page shows all of your existing fonts. They will all be available to use when personalising your artwork:
Click on the UPLOAD FONT button to add a new one.
- Give the font a name (this is how it will appear as a selection option when personalising your artwork)
- Select the file for upload - either by dragging the file onto the dark grey section or clicking the BROWSE FOR FILES button to select it from your filesystem.
- Check the checkbox to indicate that you possess the appropriate license for the font. If you are using a paid font, please ensure you verify your license (refer to the section below for further details).
- Click SAVE FONT
After you've uploaded the font, it will appear in the list of font options when you personalize your artwork and select a text field.
Font licenses
💡 This guide is not legal advice, please consult a lawyer and refer to the full font license text
Whilst some fonts are available as open source and free to use (such as Google Fonts), most are available on paid licenses. It’s your responsibility to ensure the license you have covers use within our platform.
Requirements
When seeking license coverage you need to understand the requirements of the usage.
Using a font in Penny Black can be described as follows:
- The font will be embedded into a SaaS platform, solely to generate personalised printed marketing content.
- The font is uploaded to a server and is used to generate PDF files for commercial use. The PDF files are short-lived, and only used for printing after which they are deleted.
- The font file will only be used for generation by your company’s users. No other groups of users can access the font or edit the content generated using it.
- The font will not be modified, it will be used as provided.
- The volume of materials (impressions) generated will be equal to the number of inserts you print on the Penny Black platform.
Font platforms
Fonts can be acquired from many sources. The following platforms offer a range of licenses, some of which might suit the Penny Black requirements better than fonts packaged with software: