Fontwerk.com 2.0 – new, improved and easier to use

e often struggle to stop our designers from adding yet another language, yet another weight and yet another feature to their fonts. Fonts are software and can therefore be expanded bit by bit. Yet, it is tempting to want to realize all ideas at once but it can delay the release or sometimes lead to the project being abandoned altogether. So, we had to eat a little (ahem … maybe a big bit of) humble pie when it came to our biggest project to date – a brand new website.

When we looked at revamping and refreshing our own website, we initially thought it would only take a couple of months. Originally, we only wanted to give the well-functioning website a refresh. However, one idea led to another and now, more than two years later, we are super excited to share our new ‘home’. We would most likely bore you if we listed all the new features but we would still like to share a few thoughts on this enormous project.

One reason for the relaunch was our desire to create a sharper visual profile. What sounds simple is actually a challenge for any Type Foundry website. The fonts should take center stage and very often foundries face a dilemma of how to maintain the difficult balancing act of creating breathing space and a place for the fonts while still creating an original online presence.

Our new look is inspired by our name Fontwerk, which quite simply, stands for a factory with an industrial character. Related to this are our core values and also the associations that our name makes, such as precision, metal, workbench, functionality, craftsmanship and clarity as well as our brand promise of Made in Germany. Bearing these in mind, led us to reimagining and redesigning our look which now includes the striking yet functional highlight color, a constructed-looking design, technical-looking grids and patterns and a “more neutral” UI font (Neue DIN with activated stylistic alternatives). The main font is also set in just one style and one size, keeping a low profile while our library of super stars take center stage.

Despite wanting to ensure Fontwerk stands out, the focus should not be on our brand, but on our fonts and their marketing campaigns. These are very important to us and we wanted to give them more prominence on the new website. This is one of the reasons for putting Superfamilies and Collections front and center. Nice does not have to be presented four times (Poster, Headline, Text, Micro), McQueen (‘Normal’, Grotesk) also doesn’t have to appear twice. This also means that the growing library is presented in a more organized way and a new and improved filter function provides further orientation. There are still sub-family pages (e.g. for Nice Poster or McQueen Grotesk), but the focus is one level higher. Four different themes are available for Collection and Family pages, this provides variety and supports moods that match the typefaces.

At the heart of every font presentation is the TypeTester. Although it already existed before, it is now variable, more extensive and offers more design options. A slightly slimmed-down version welcomes visitors on the start page, because knowing our typefaces being used is why Fontwerk exists.

The best way to “experience” the fonts is to install them locally and test them in your own documents and projects. That’s why we have radically improved the Trial Fonts and made them even easier to access and separate from the purchasing process. And in an extra bonus, you will now get the entire range with every download, so you can try our whole library before you buy. You can find out more about our new Trial Fonts in a separate article.

We’ve also refined the purchasing process. In cooperation between the marketing, UX design and legal teams, we were able to further simplify our license model, making it even fairer and improving the user experience. If this wasn’t enough, there is now a very simple Education Discount. You can read more about these two new developments on our new blog (Text).

At a time when design magazines and blogs are disappearing and audiences are at the mercy of algorithms, it seems more appropriate than ever to invest in our own content and present it in a self-managed space. Text is intended to be such a place. It gives us more typographic options than the rest of the site, so that font stories, in-use and other articles can be read with more pleasure and we can provide a greater depth and breadth to our content.

Last but not least, we would like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved. As with all of our projects, we put together a team that was as large as necessary and as small as possible. UX designer Julian Thiel, Web Developer Rob Meek and Project Manager Ivo Gabrowitsch have been driving this project for the past two years. And we’re grateful to Lucy Beckley, Christian Köhler, Jan Kuhlen, Dorothee Lange and Pauline Schischkoff for their input and insight too. We would also like to thank our type designers for being so open to these extensive changes.

So without futher ado, we’re delighted to present the brand new website and take the next big step on the journey of Fontwerk.

Starty discovering fonts