What we have learned so far?

Happy 2020! With both the old decade and our 20th anniversary behind us, now might seem like a good time to look back on all the accomplishments that have brought us this far. But perhaps instead of listing what we have done, it would be more useful to reflect on what we have learned.

The world is culturally rich, and promoting its diversity is crucial

The world is rich and diverse, but there are alarming reports of rapid language extinction. While Pew Research Center estimates predict that the world’s population will have increased from 7 billion to about 11 billion by the end of the 21st century, at current rates, only half of the 7,000 languages that we recognise today will still be in existence at that time. The result will be a world that is more culturally homogeneous, favouring dominant languages at the expense of smaller regional ones. That’s why we’ve decided to design not only for the Latin script but for a dozen others as well. And moving forward, we intend to build our collection by adding support for a new language and script every year. We added Kannada and Telugu in 2019, and we have ambitious plans for 2020.

There is no one market to target

Salesmen tend to focus on markets where their product is most likely to sell even though those are the areas most likely to be saturated with similar offerings. We have learned that ‘market’ opportunities are everywhere, even in places that at first glance might not seem likely. We have customers in such ‘exotic’ locales as Armenia, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Kosovo, etc., and different regions have different needs and preferences. Our website doesn’t show a list of our bestselling fonts since that information is largely useless until you break it down by region. Here are some examples:

The longer-term impact of work is important

The daily blizzard of approaching deadlines, urgent tasks and endless emails can be overwhelming and exhausting, and it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Often when we slow down, take a break, perhaps go for a walk, we disrupt our habitual routines and gain new insights. Journaling and keeping a diary are useful ways to keep track of broader goals. We also created this simple tool, a 100-year calendar to keep us focused on long-term perspectives. And our publishing project Works That Work gave us a chance to discuss the lasting impact of design.

We need to be in constant communication with our customers

In our effort to make Typotheque a responsible and responsive type foundry/design company with a focus on innovation and multilingual typography, we’d like to learn more from you about how we can create more useful and valuable typefaces.

We created this online survey (ended now), and your honest feedback will play a large role in our decisions for the future. As a sign of appreciation, everyone who completes it will receive a 20% discount code for your next font order.