TDN Diary 01.12.2024

On foundry sites

Hi friends! 

Welcome to the first installation of what I am calling the TDN Diaries! I hope these can be highly informational yet casual emails. The first few updates will definitely be focused on catching all of you up on where I am at and the decisions I have already made. This week we’re talking websites! 

Before we get into the details, it would be helpful to mention the main requirement for a type foundry website. A fully functional foundry site needs to have the ability to have variants on digital products. This is to account for different licensing levels and selling single styles vs full families. 

I should preface that there is also the option to hire an agency or web developer to create your site for you and that route definitely bypasses all the hurdles I mention below. But right now, that is not an option that is financially accessible to me and I do not want to start TDN in debt.

For me personally, it’s important that the first site that TDN has is affordable and easy for me to create. I do have experience in web design and can do some light coding. However, it’s surprisingly difficult to find a diy website building platform that allows variants on digital products AND is customizable. Aesthetics, in this instance, are very important to me.

Here are some of the options I looked into:

• Squarespace is highly customizable but doesn’t allow for variants on digital products 

• Wordpress feels a little clunky to set up for me personally (too many plugins needed to make it functional) 

• Gumroad allows for variants but is not customizable 

• FontDue has an amazing platform for selling fonts but is only customizable by hiring their team to design it for you

• Shopify allows variants but has a pretty rigid structure 

• I almost used Big Cartel but their site themes are also a little rigid for me 

• And Cargo Collective is on my personal shit list (listen to this and think of CC for me)

Last time I updated you on my website, I was nearly finished designing my site via Cargo Collective. I was so excited because it had everything I wanted — the site was easy to design and their shop features are pretty flexible. BUT I was trying to solve a problem one day and inspected the site to check the code. I discovered that all custom fonts uploaded to their site are easily downloadable through links in the css (!!!!). I assumed that there would be a work around because in the year of our lord 2023, our files should be protected! Especially if we’re selling said files!!!!!! So I reached out to their support and received a very condescending email back with no solution or mentions of other foundries that use CC??? As I’m sure you’re noticing, this got me all fired up and is doing so again. 

For a lot of moral reasons, I couldn’t move forward with CC. Of course I was equal parts pissed and devastated because the website has been a huge barrier for me and I was right back at square one. After some time away from it, I went back into research mode. I felt like there had to be a solution out there that meets my very specific requirements and I went to one of the places where a lot of OGs discuss this kind of thing — fontdrawers.com. I don’t know why I didn’t look here first. Sometimes my ego leads me to believe that no one can figure this out but me (lol). 

I found this post discussing my exact problem and Craig Eliason (who is from my home state of Minnesota and therefore holds my absolute confidence) mentioned that he uses Webflow for the site portion but integrates FontDue’s ecommerce function. Until then, I had never heard of Webflow. I looked into it and it’s exactly what I was looking for. The platform requires a little bit of a learning period because it’s completely different than other website builders out there. The design tools are built to function similarly to how you would code a website. It takes a second to wrap your head around but it’s essentially creating boxes within boxes. Similar to how you would code a website. 

So this finally brings me to now. I am so painfully close to finishing the site so I don’t want to spoil anything!! But here is a progress screenshot so you can see what the design interface looks like! In the end, I am really happy to have gotten here despite the frustrations along the way. The combination of these two platforms will give me a professional site that will (hopefully) serve me for the foreseeable future. 

Lastly, I would like to add that you don’t have to be as picky as I am about the site. Any website with images of a font and an email to purchase from counts as a type foundry!! And having a website is better than not having one — trust me. ;) 

---

5 Things I’m Into This Week 

1. Recently I read Stephen King’s memoir called “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.” Even though I don’t aspire to become a writer, I got a lot out of it. There are a lot of similarities to writing and type design; both require a lot of up front work without pay (lolz). And to be a successful writer, you need to aggressively put yourself out there — much like type designers. One of my biggest take aways was that he says books write themselves and I feel very similarly about fonts. Oftentimes, you simply strap into the software and let the design lead the way. 

2. There’s a new type design podcast called “Hello, type friends!" hosted by Elliot Jay Stocks. I’ve been enjoying the interviews and can’t wait to hear more!

3. The class showcase for my fall ’23 cohort is live! We make a zine for every Crash Course that I teach and it’s always such a fun way to commemorate all the hard work the students put in (in just five weeks!!). Psst — there’s still spots for the January revival class if you want a zine with your own font in it! 

4. Another recent read was “The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi” by Shannon Chakraborty. It was a delightful adventure story with some fantasy elements as well. I read a lot of fantasy books and this one was very refreshing! It’s about a 12th century pirate (who is a woman *gasp*) sailing the Indian Ocean. Highly recommend!

5. If you want a song to scream sing to, may I present Delta Dawn by Tanya Tucker:

See you next week! 
Libbie