How We Sailed Through Font Minefields

Independent game studios tend to have strong opinions about typography—and budgets that don’t include five-figure type licenses.

The Flying Fortress Games mockups came back with Gill Sans. It’s beautiful, warm, and makes you trust whatever appears beneath it. Of course we couldn’t afford it.

Charting the Course

So the hunt began. Fifteen candidates. Several rounds. More comparison tables than any sane person should produce.

Work Sans looked promising—screen-readable, contemporary, and available in every weight we could reasonably want. IBM Plex Sans brought engineering credibility with quiet confidence. Source Sans offered reassuring neutrality as Adobe’s gift to the open-source world.

None of them felt like Flying Fortress Games. They read as competent, not ours.

A Mark on the Map

Then B612 entered the discussion. Designed for French aeronautics and cockpit readability, it immediately earned our attention. PT Sans became the main alternative, bringing Eastern European precision and long-form mastery.

Someone mentioned Marianne. Not because we’d decided to use it, but because if you’re looking for a modern French sans-serif associated with French public institutions and engineering culture, it would have been strange not to ask.

Checking the Charts

So we checked the license before sketching anything or imagining it beside Marcellus. The answer was immediate: the Marianne typeface is reserved for the French State and its official communications. « Elle ne peut être utilisée pour d’autres usages. »

Case closed. No redesign. No difficult decision. No wasted work.

That’s why you check licensing early. Most engineering disasters aren’t prevented by brilliant recoveries—they’re prevented by boring habits. Asking the question before the design takes shape. Accepting that some doors are locked and moving on without resentment.

And hence, B612 remains our leading candidate. It carries the French character we wanted, the aeronautical heritage matching our studio name, and a warmth that reminds us why Gill Sans appealed in the first place. PT Sans waits in reserve, ready if B612 proves too instrumental or cockpit-focused.

Gill Sans remains in the original mockups—beautiful ghost, impossible ambition, guiding light.

Sea Trials

We’re now doing the only test that really matters. Reading. Not looking at specimens for five seconds or judging letterforms in isolation. A full journal post, headlined and photographed, laid out in the actual design system. A few thousand words. Twenty minutes. If it still feels effortless, we’ll know we’re close. If not, we’ll keep looking.

Typography doesn’t bend to deadlines — it bends to judgment. It rewards patience far more often than inspiration, and teaches you to check the license before falling in love with a name.

We sailed through the minefield. Barely slowed down. No explosions. Just another reminder that good engineering is often invisible. The best engineering decisions are the ones that quietly remove problems before anyone notices they were ever there.