FontStruct is a fantastic application. It’s free and it focuses on one particular task well which means it fits all the criteria for inclusion in the Friday review, but that’s not why I’m writing about it here.
By deciding to take a punt and release FontStruct for free in the Spring of 2008, FontShop did something that exemplifies the web business model and the great benefits it brings when done right.
So first of all, what is FontStruct…
FontStruct is a web app that anyone (with the time) can use to create their own fonts. USers of the servic can download their fonts and make them available for others to use under the Creative Common license. It’s available at fontstruct.fontshop.com if you want to give it a go. Registration is free. This video says it all though.
Why is it so exemplary? What have they done?
Well by setting up a free product in parallel to their core business, they did some key things.
- They did what they know and love. Fonts
- They created a framework for User Generated Content.
- They have gently integrated their paid products into the free product.
By a stroke of genius they brought their passion, fonts, to an even wider audience and made it accessible to anyone with a computer. By doing so they let people in to their world, made it fun, released new talent. They gave people a behind the scene look at what they and typographers do. That’s something we all take for granted and it turns out to be not so easy after all. In other words, they’ve brought us round to respecting what they do and have picked up new customers along the way.
They also had excellent timing. FontShop, the company behind FontStruct, specialises in selling catalogues of fonts. New fonts are going to become more and more important on the web as browsers start to move beyond the standard font families over the next few years due to the widespread introduction of font embedding. It’s not a bad time to be in the font business.
The buzz around this product when it launched was enormous and things like that can help attract good people to your company and boost morale internally.
As a business they could have settled for more traditional routes to increasing their sales such as affiliates, but the products they sell on their main site cost between €169 and €13,200.00. Not really an impulse purchase.
By setting up a free product they can rapidly build up a new user base to whom they can promote their core business.
This is what the web is good for, but you have to be quick and you have to be good at it. Most of all, it seems that those that do best at it didn’t have pure profit in mond when they started out.
So sign up at at fontstruct.fontshop.com and have a go at creating your own font. It’s not as easy as you think.
Filed under: Free Fridays, Free Software, Promoting Your Website and Organisation
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