After an open call in June, I’ve been doing calls with fifteen young type designers interested in starting their own foundry. One a week, more or less.

Thread of some common topics that we’ve talked about.

A
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When do I start?
How do I start?
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A1) Right here, right now. All you need is to show the typefaces and say that they’re available for licensing upon request. Congrats, you’ve started a foundry!

A2) Unlike ten years ago, there’s multiple type foundry CMS out there that should allow you to launch a decent web shop at a low cost. Best not to try to reinvent the wheel of tech stuff when you’re just starting out.

A3) Seriously, the best way to start is… to start. Over time, quality will improve, QA will improve, your sense of what you want the foundry and your catalog to be will improve. That’s normal and good.

A4) Trying to emulate any specific long-established foundry would be your first mistake. Learn from all of them, take what works for you, but do things your own way.

B
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How will anyone hear about the foundry?
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B1) You can be a type designer, or you can be that and run a foundry as well. If it’s the latter, you’ll do lots of stuff that isn’t type design. One of those would be marketing.

B2) If that’s not something you ever want to touch, you can still start a foundry! It’s just going to be a lot harder to make a living from your work. Or, if you ever earn enough to do so, you can pay someone else for that work.

B3) We all know marketing as a bunch of sleazy stuff that we hate. Your job is to do it better, to promote your work in a way that isn’t sleazy, shitty, or spammy. That’s the hard part! Shitty marketing is way easier.

B4) The good news is that you can just do what feels good to you, and that is usually the best way anyway. Showing work in progress, in use examples, and just talking about type to graphic designers is a great start.

C
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Is starting a foundry worth all the work?
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C1) That really just depends on your goals. For me, starting Grilli was worth it. I’ve learned so much by doing so. I’ve grown so much as a person. It allowed me to work on things I care about and that are fun. And it pays my rent.

C2) Lots of people push these things ahead of themselves, thinking that one day they’ll know exactly how things should look, what they should be called, and everything will be perfect.

C3) Guess what: my type foundry is called Grilli Type and our first website sucked, hard. And what a weirdo name. Grilli started as a student project and its first logo was a pony with a big penis. Now it’s not a student project anymore, and that’s good too.

These calls weren’t exactly mentorships—they were really just short exchanges. But what it really showed me is that there’s lots of uncertainty among designers about the value of doing things your own way.

And to answer that uncertainty, I can just say: if you can afford to do it, go try things your way first. If going alone (with friends, preferably) is not for you, that’s great to know still.

It’s a privilege to be able to even try, and so I think it’s a shame to waste that.