However, today marks the beginning of a whole new era for FontShop.com users. For the time has come for us to finally be able to show fonts in their element, live and optimized for the screen. This means saying goodbye to simulation and hello to the power of true typographic magic, from now on what you see is quite literally what you get.

Twenty-five years ago when FontShop first launched, we sent out printed collateral that allowed customers to judge typefaces in their original form. Then along came the Internet, forcing us to show pictures of typefaces (as GIFs) on the FontShop website rather than the fonts themselves.

With the launch of our new website, licensing fonts just got realer, faster, increasingly interactive and a whole lot more fun.

As part of this new found freedom, we’ve implemented a sleek and effective layout-tool, the ‘Tryout’, which enables you to combine fonts, colors and your own images. Super quick and easy to use, with several templates on offer, you can try and play to your hearts content. Once you are happy with the result simply save the URL to refer to later when deciding on the best fonts for your purpose. Alternatively share the URL on social media or with friends, colleagues and clients, who can then go on to make their own adjustments to the image, fonts and colors used in your original design.

Just like our motto says: ‘Not by chance. By design’ we’ve continued to focus on quality, not quantity. Each partner foundry is carefully handpicked to guarantee the technical and aesthetic quality. With over 160 to choose from, you’ll find exactly what you're looking for.

At the heart of our new website are the typeface family pages. Each family page has an interactive test area that allows you to discover and inspect each typeface. Leave no stone unturned when embarking on your typographic journey to find a face that fits.

Even when you’re at a loss for ideas or in need of a little inspiration, FontShop.com can help. Our Fontlists, which have been compiled and curated by experts, are fantastic source of reference. A few examples include: the DIN Typefaces of different foundries (Stephen Coles); Sexy Type (Yves Peters); or the 100 best fonts of all time (Jürgen Siebert). Each list contains type specimens, quotes, images and further information. Best of all, you can now create your own lists and share with others.

To the right-hand side of our improved family pages you will find the Discovery panel with a selection of icons directing you to other sources of inspiration. Such as similar or related families, an in-use gallery showing the typeface in action or a Fontlist button taking you to a list where the family is referenced.

We’ve also introduced more editing functions to our partner foundry pages enabling them to keep their pages fresh and up-to-date.

In celebration of the launch of the new improved FontShop.com we are excited to be able to offer a mini family of one of the most popular typefaces of 2014, FF Franziska (consisting of Regular, Italic and Demi Bold) for an incredible $/€/£ 9.90 for the entirety of December.

So go on, explore, discover and most of all have fun with everything that our new site has to offer!