Fontelier

MrEchs

On the back cover of the new issue of Type magazine, which arrived in my mailbox this week, there's an advertisement for "a new kind of font marketplace" from Morisawa called Fontelier.

On the website http://www.fontelier.com there's some information about the new project which is very intriguing.

I'm curious if anybody else has heard anything about this that they'd care to share.

--Matthew
Business Letters LLC
http://bizlet.org

Claudio Piccinini

I haven’t, but it sounds great.

Mark Simonson

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing by the fact that it's in Type magazine and has a red and black color scheme that it's something Roger Black has a hand in.

MrEchs

I just spoke to Roger. He said "I'll bet Simonson has something to do with this."

He didn't really say that. But it's not a Roger thing.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

I bet Highsmith knows.

Kent Lew

For what it’s worth, when you click that red “What is Fontelier?” on the website, that large background image is Matthew Carter marking up proofs on a years-long, as-yet-unreleased project.

Other images from that same project accompany the Sept 25 and Oct 23, 2018 posts.

MrEchs

Here's the quote from the website that really piqued my interest: 

Morisawa planned and designed this font distribution marketplace to provide not only Morisawa fonts, but also fonts from other vendor and foundry’s libraries.

That's exciting stuff.

--Matthew

Claudio Piccinini

MrEchs said:

Here's the quote from the website that really piqued my interest: 

Morisawa planned and designed this font distribution marketplace to provide not only Morisawa fonts, but also fonts from other vendor and foundry’s libraries.

That's exciting stuff.

--Matthew

Yes. A quality outlet is badly needed.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Mostly quality pricing is needed. Which does not necessarily mean high pricing.

Christian Thalmann

It says «exclusive access». Does that mean the fonts cannot be sold elsewhere?

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Probably. And/or the sales are somehow limited.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Here's something:
https://fontelier.com/magazine/fontelier-behind-the-scenes-takeshi-morisawa.html

MrEchs

Hrant H. Papazian said:

Here's something:
https://fontelier.com/magazine/fontelier-behind-the-scenes-takeshi-morisawa.html

Yeah, that's the page I took the quote from. I had the good fortune to do business with Takeshi Morisawa many times in my years at Adobe. He's a very smart guy and very much an innovator, clearly thinking about the next 100 years for Morisawa.

I found particularly impressive the several things he says in the interview that seem to reveal a very competitive and disruptive posture.

I'm positively giddy to see what he has planned.

--Matthew Rechs
Business Letters LLC
http://bizlet.org

Claudio Piccinini

I did not know about this:
https://fontelier.com/magazine/introducing-our-foundries-occupant-fonts.html
Also:
https://fontelier.com/magazine/introducing-our-foundries-typebank.html
https://fontelier.com/magazine/type-in-use.html
And further articles about Japanese types.