Netflix’s new font could save the company millions of dollars

Bespoke fonts are all the rage recently. IBM, General Electric, Intel, and Coca-Cola have all designed custom fonts in an effort to unify branding and make a more cohesive look for their companies’ products.

Netflix is the most recent company to join the bespoke font club, but they didn’t do it for the branding. They did it to save some serious cash. The new font (creatively named Netflix Sans) will save Netflix marketing dollars because using fonts often attracts large licensing fees, according to its brand design lead Noah Nathan.

Related: Designers’ favorite typefaces

Nathan said to AdWeek that “[w]ith the global nature of Netflix’s business, font licensing can get quite expensive,” he told design website It’s Nice That on Wednesday. “Developing this typeface not only created an ‘ownable’ and unique element for the brand’s aesthetic … But saves the company millions of dollars a year as foundries move towards impression-based licensing for their typefaces in many digital advertising spaces.”

Clean, legible, and (honestly?) a little boring, Netflix Sans favors simplicity over distractions and aims to draw more focus to the content, no matter the device you are using. The new sans-serif replaces the oft-used Gotham.

And hey, check out the arched top of its lowercase “t”. It’s a subtle nod to the screen-like curve of the Netflix logo.