TypeThursday: Ethan, it’s a pleasure to have you here.

Ethan Dunham: Thank you. I appreciate you having me.

TT: All right. Great. So start from the top with Fontspring. It’s been five years with Fontspring, correct?

ED: Correct. Yep. February 2010.

TT: Yeah. So what was the impetus for Fontspring?

Fontspring’s Founding

ED: Well, it’s helpful to start back at the beginning, about 1995, I had actually started designing my own fonts and was making and selling them up until about 2008. Around 2009, the ability for a web browser to display web fonts was not possible. I believe Safari kicked that domino over. And I think it was within a few months, all the browsers would support web fonts. When I learned about that — and I was doing web design half-time, doing fonts half-time, so it really interested me — I built some tools to convert fonts to the correct formats, along with CSS, so that fonts could be used easily converted for use on the web.

I had a framework in mind for how to build this font website. I had the tools and now an open door. There’s nobody who had done web fonts yet. A lot of people were very interested but there were no tools or vendors. So I saw that as an opening to jump from creating fonts and selling them to being a distributor.

So I thought, instead of just being a type designer — and I was designing very niche, whimsical fonts — I thought it would be better to be in the middle. I had a lot of web experience, a lot of font experience, and I thought that could translate to being a distributor. And so in about six months I pulled the site together and we launched in February of 2010.

Insights from Selling Type Online

TT: In the time since starting Fontspring what part surprised you? From the time when you were a type designer making type to distributing it, was there anything that really surprised you or things you didn’t expect in that transition when you started that distributing phase that you didn’t know before?

ED: Yes. I didn’t realize how lopsided sales could be. It’s like that hockey stick curve. You have a few foundries with most of the sales and then there’s a really long tail. I never realized how dominant some fonts were. That was one thing.

Secondly, web fonts were an opening for us to get into distribution, but the market for desktop fonts is really much bigger and more interesting. And I frankly didn’t think about that too much early on, but that’s where we’re trying to transition to.

TT: So wait, is that still true today?

ED: That is absolutely true today. Yeah.

TT: Ah! Very fascinating.

Sales-wise, it’s more local to the US and English-speaking countries, but the actual designers that we sell for, the bulk of them are not from the US.

ED: Also, as an American designer, I never realized how global the type design market was. I mean, really, 70% of our designers are overseas, which I find really interesting. Sales-wise, it’s more local to the US and English-speaking countries, but the actual designers that we sell for, the bulk of them are not from the US.

TT: Ah! That’s very fascinating too. What else have you noticed?

ED: I think for individual type designers, it takes a lot to stand out. There’s been a lot of push-back from using heavy introductory discounts to get traction. In order for a foundry to make a name for himself, a designer has to essentially give away his font for a little while to get his name in front of people before he’s established himself. Most people don’t think that is sustainable.

How you sell fonts and create a brand in a crowded marketplace is a challenge for us as distributors and for designers.

TT: Well, it’s accurate because — most type foundries are usually 1–3 man shops. The reason why it’s relevant is that it’s individual people, really, producing type. It’s not larger entities that can absorb cost or risk across a larger spectrum. Is that true from your perspective?

How you sell fonts and create a brand in a crowded marketplace is a challenge for us as distributors and for designers.

ED: Yes. It’s true. Almost all of our foundries are single designers. I mean, there’s a few that have maybe two or three. We have a team of five-and-a-half. And it’s not really enough to do what we want to do, but that just focuses our priorities.

But, you’re right, it takes a lot of effort to market. And when you’re a type designer, you want to make fonts, not take the effort to market your work. That’s where we come in.

TT: How does Fontspring come in to help designers with that problem? You talked about how the industry trend is the fire sale. What things are Fontspring trying to do to resolve that issue? Or what other attempts or strategies have you guys come up with?

Other Ways to Market Type Besides Discounting

ED: Our team leans technical, and we tend to look for solutions through that lense, for better or worse. A big problem that we’ve worked really hard to solve involves the catalog itself. The buzzwords we always talk about are “curation” and “discovery.” How do you curate your catalog? And how do you make it discoverable? It’s a taxonomy problem we’ve spent a lot of effort improving.

How do you curate your catalog? And how do you make it discoverable? It’s a taxonomy problem we’ve spent a lot of effort improving.

Now, many of our sales come from people looking for a specific font from Google. They already know what they want and they get in and get out. But what about the more thoughtful designer who is looking for something distinctive to match a particular project?

How do you show them those fonts? Let’s say she’s designing a wedding invitation and looking for a hand-drawn script font that’s interesting. We abandoned tagging families and now assign tags to every single font. This becomes really useful because we can show you exact matches for your faceted search. In this case she’d be able to filter fonts by checking the “grunge” option, then the “calligraphy” one and so on. In a few clicks she’d have a manageable list to pick from.

We’re working on ways to visually browse the library in a more delightful way. That hasn’t happened yet, but we are working on it.

It’s one thing to have a hot font that sells well for three months, but what about the font that you designed five years ago that’s actually really well done, but forgotten?

TT: Fontspring wants to make visual browsing more powerful but you feel like your team is not big enough to achieve that. So that’s one of the projects you guys would love to expand on?

ED: Absolutely. And it benefits font designers. It’s one thing to have a hot font that sells well for three months, but what about the font that you designed five years ago that’s actually really well done, but forgotten? How do you get that in front of people. That is one problem we are trying to solve.

TT: That actually leads to another topic. From your point of view, where should type designers put their attention in their marketing?

How Can Type Designer Better Market Their Work

ED: Honestly, I think what helps them the most is — it helps to release fonts regularly. You want to be releasing fonts on a fairly regular schedule, if you can. That keeps your name in front and offers you an opportunity to be “followed” by other designers.

You can’t release fonts as a single weight anymore. People are looking for complete packages. So if it’s a text font, you really need a regular, a bold, an italic and a bold italic, at the very least. The more successful ones have 20–30 styles.

Designers are looking for OpenType features now too. Particularly with display fonts. You know, “Show me the swash characters and contextual alternates and the stylistic alternates.” Even with display fonts, where ten years ago you could get away with selling an individual style, now are almost always in collections of 10–20 fonts that all go together. And they’re marketed as kits and collections.

Finally consider the extreme importance of properly naming your fonts. We see a lot of great fonts that have terrible names. Consider the name the first impression.

TT: That’s really great information you’re providing to everybody. Ethan, I think it’s been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for your time.

ED: My pleasure!