Foundries on mobile?

Alex Visi

Hi everybody! Curious to hear any opinion on by what degree should a foundry website be adapted for mobile experience? I assume that designers mostly do font researches and purchases from desktop, or am I living in the past?

Ramiro Espinoza

A fairly common scenario: many customers will use their smartphones to open your newsletters and then check your website / fonts. I was also told that type enthusiasts sometimes go to the extent of checking foundries and fonts on their smartphones while in the toilet but this information is hard to verify

Matthew Smith

From my perspective, having a mobile experience is about removing friction.

If I’m on my phone and go to a foundry’s website, I am going there for a reason. It might be because, like Ramiro said, I clicked through their newsletter or I clicked through from their social media profile or simply because I am browsing.

Regardless, I am a user that is on my phone that is simply interested in seeing the website that I clicked on.

If that simple experience of trying to view a foundry’s website turns into “This website only works on desktop”, whether I’m conscious of it or not, the website is producing both friction and a negative experience.

As type designers & engineers, we (typically) stress over making sure our fonts work across a variety of platforms and software. Why shouldn’t the same care go into one’s website?

Caveat: This isn't to say I expect mobile foundry sites to behave the exact same as their desktop counterpart, but the browsing should be just as pleasant.

Stuart Sandler

As a practical matter, Google will not return the foundry website in a mobile search unless it is mobile friendly. If a user visits a foundry website on their mobile device it's certainly a better experience if the site is mobile friendly for them.

However, if we're referring to mobile as a potential income stream via mobile, I can attest that iOS font sales via our mobile app has been quite a successful experiment and indeed there is a new marketplace for iOS users even if there are very few apps that currently support custom fonts. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/font-diner/id1480286620