Hello people!
As part of my thesis, I am working on a platform/tool for type design discourse. The goal is to create a place where opinions and comments can be linked to certain glyphs, areas in glyphs and spectra in the design space. The intention is to create more
overview over the discussion,
interactivity with the font, and to
link comments with the original visual reference.
My questions to you are:
- how valuable do you consider these features?
- what are features you are missing in today's platforms for typographic discourse?
I would really appreciate your thoughts!
Best, Leon
Comments
Although there’s no drag and drop, the ability to post images is quite easy.
However, most posts are text.
Why did you not post an image to demonstrate your concern, Leon?
Hey guys,
thank you for you responses and resources.
I did not yet post an image because I'm still in the process of visualising my ideas. Images will follow!


I think both is plausible. I'm picturing the platform to be both for design teams to discuss their work (or indie type designers to ask for critique) as well as a platform for general discourse on, say, typographic conventions. I am thinking about interactivity not in a way of users interacting with one another by sending messages or posts and comments. I'm thinking interactivity in the sense of interacting with the font. YouTube is visual but not very interactive in the way I just described. Telegram isn't much more interactive or visual than typedrawers, is it?Example:
Someone is designing a variable font and is asking for feedback on the new platform. Fellow users may look at the font and spot an issue with the signs /$/&/ in a location on the weight axis.
On a forum like type drawers, they may take a screen shot or reference the letter /&/$/ and then explain their concerns. On the new platform, it would be possible to click on the comment and the two letters in question would be displayed in their referenced configuration.
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I'll keep updating this thread to clarify. I'm happy to hear more opinions and insights. And keep the questions coming. Thank you so much!
Versioning and integration with the workflow might be tricky. If there are 50 comments and in one run I solve 20 of them and tweak another 15 for another round, how to keep track of that? Find differences between the files and highlight comments which have some changes, perhaps?
I’d probably also expect the comment list to have good sorting and filtering options (sort by importance, by date; filter by hashtag)