Good News & Bad News
over 8 years ago – Thu, Nov 26, 2015 at 11:09:49 PM

Hmmm, bad news... 

They just happen, all the time. All around us, in our daily lives, in our countries, in our world.

Like anyone else, I dislike them. But I feel like we just need to face them. Solve them. Overcome them. And then, move on to the next thing. That's life. Life goes on...

If any of you faces bad news, just remember how lucky you are to have what you already have: a life, a family, friends, peaceful neighbors, etc. Just close your eyes, take a deep breath, and then embrace life like you never did before.

So what's the bad news today?

First, not a biggie, but there are still 113 backers who didn't fill their details on our BackerKit survey. If you are one of these, please check your emails (I sent you some reminders) or simply click on this link to receive another one.

And now, the big, bad, font-related news:

Fontself for Photoshop will take a bit longer to show up. (Sigh)

Yet Fontself for Illustrator will ship in due time.

The long story: since we are dedicated to honor our promise to deliver a reward to early backers by Christmas 2015 and a public release by January 2016, and as we uncovered unexpected challenges while working on the extensions, it became clear we had a tough choice to make. 

Either we would release half-cooked extensions for both PS & AI - meaning nobody would be happy - or we would focus on a single extension and work around the clock to make it as good as you deserve.

Many of us have been waiting for many years to see such creative features on Photoshop, so I hope you - dear Photoshop users - will be a bit more patient. 

All the work we are currently doing on the Illustrator extension will be critical for your own extension, and you will actually get benefits from having a delayed product: you will get better & more advanced features at launch time, and you will enjoy much more robust software (many bugs will be endured by your fellow vector friends - not you - until we fix 'em all ;)

I can't give you any ETA yet, but the wait will be worth it. Trust me.

So, ... any good news?

Yes, we are making rapid progress on many other fronts. 

Despite the Photoshop delay, the Illustrator extension is getting much better every day. We will actually start planting some early test versions into the hands of a few beta users in upcoming weeks, to ensure early Kickstarter backers get a rock-solid beta software as their Xmas gift =)

It's too early to know what features will be ready, but we have more unexpected goodness, some really nice features that we didn't think we could build so quickly...

And last, but not least, we just joined the French startup accelerator TheFamily, whose amazing team will challenge us on all aspects of the Fontself venture, now that we owe you to thrive on the long run.

Because - as I told you during the campaign - we will keep maintaining & building much more compelling creative tools in the future. And I will not make the same mistakes again: while we will try hard to ship software that truly brings value to all of you on a daily basis, we will also do our best to ensure the project gets the necessary resources to build the vision you backed, over the years to come.

Fontself Catapult? Nation? Yep, and way more stuff too...

Now take care & share the love,

Franz

*** *** *** ** ** *

PS: hmm... it's past 1am in Paris, my eyes are dry because I stared at the computer all day long, and I start fearing this PS thing... What shall I write that might be funny, insightful or surprising? "Am feeling so sleepy", that's the only thing I can think of right now...

PS1: ok, ok, let me think about something... Oh, yes! ... 

Many of you asked me about the form we sent you by email via BackerKit: will you be able to use your extensions on both Mac & PC, or on different versions of Adobe's apps? Or, when you own both a laptop and a desktop computer, will you be able to install them on both. Well, in each of these cases, YES, you will. We'll go into the specifics later, but this is what we'd expect as users ourselves, and we're currently dealing with the technical solutions to make it seamless.

PS2: Friday's not far away. Weekend's just around the corner. Time to take a break. Time to meet the elder too, thank around, help the ones we can help. Sometimes, just a smile will do miracles. So, let's keep smiling.

Your action is needed: we just sent you a survey from BackerKit.com
over 8 years ago – Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 06:06:41 PM

Hello font lovers, it's been a while ;)

As promised, I sent you a survey by email and you just need to fill it with your details.

Please look for the email from BackerKit in your mailbox, as that is the partner service we are using to collect all the details needed to ship your Kickstarter rewards. (And please check your SPAM folder if you can't find it now...)

Just click the BIG GREEN BUTTON that says "Click Here to Respond" and it will walk you though the process.

You will be able to pick additional rewards or even upgrade to a mightier one, because some of you will regret they didn't pick one of our PACKS including both Photoshop & Illustrator extensions with a discount, or even missed the superb Catapult PRO :) More details below...

Just post a comment here if you have any questions, I will get right back to you, or you can email me at [email protected]

Cheers!

######W#########A#########S######S############U###########P#######?

PS: Need help? 

Here's what the survey from BackerKit looks like once you open it in your email client, and where you need to click:

Next, when the BackerKit website loads, you may decide it's time to go bold and to upgrade your pledge to a pumped up version of Fontself extensions (yes, it will cost you extra $$$, I know... - Sigh! - Don't be disappointed my friend, it's just business ;) 

Beware, it's not obvious where you gotta click to do so! Here's a tip: 

Last, since you are absolutely fabulous fans, you will want to show your love for the project by sharing it with others (and they will LOVE YOU for doing so in return ;)

Here, you got 4 options:

• You share the love with some friends on paper (pick our cool letterpress cards, these will only be available to you Kickstarter backers, so it's your last chance to get a hold on them)
• You share the love with a creative friend who's eager to use Fontself too (and you get a 20% discount on whichever additional extension or pack you pick (that sounds nice, "pakyoopik", doesn't it?)
• You share more love with your favorite software developers (put some coins in our tip jar)
• And if you spent enough money with the crazy geeks, you can still just share the love with your friends on Twitter and Facebook.

PS1: if you are not a backer yet but would love to get your hands on our font creation extensions for Photoshop & Illustrator, you can pre-order your copy here.

PS2: we've been doing really great progress this week on the extensions and just wanted to give you a sneak peek at something we'll talk in details soon. Enjoy!

Moving forward = next steps + pre-orders
over 8 years ago – Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 06:53:41 AM

Hi everyone,
As we already got back to work on your Fontself extensions (yes, things keep progressing on that front too), I just wanted to tell you a couple things:

- To all backers: you will have to wait a bit more until we can ship your rewards, but I will send you a survey within 2 weeks.
- To all late birds: you can now pre-order your copy of Fontself here.

That's about it, more details below.

Dear Backers,

Should I repeat myself, I can't tell you how great it feels to wake up every morning knowing so many of you backed Fontself and are eager to use it. Exciting times ;)

So: first, Kickstarter needs to transfer over the funds so we have the money to finish your Fontself extensions (this can take up to two weeks, as some of you were notified by the Kickstarter team they had some issues processing their credit cards :(

Second, we have to find out where and how we need to ship your rewards (some letterpress goodness ;) so we will be sending a survey to collect your information within two weeks (I will let you know when the survey is out).

FYI, the survey will be sent via BakerKit, a super nice service that helps us collect & process all the data we need to ship your rewards. It will be important to submit your responses as quickly as you can, as our ability to process your rewards depends on receiving this information. If you’ve never used Backerkit before, here is a quick rundown on how to use it.

If you prefer, you can just message me and give me your information, but answering your BackerKit survey will help us get your rewards out to you quicker. BackerKit helps us save lots of time by automating the survey data gathering process and providing us with pledge management software to speed up fulfillment.

Dear others,

Did you miss the boat, the train, the party? Still hoping you could get your hands on the Fontself extensions? Well, we have been working with our friends at BakerKit to setup a pre-order site, so you could soon start creating your own fonts too :)

Simply go to http://preorder.fontself.com and pick the extension you want or one of our bundles. They combine both Fontself extensions for Photoshop & Illustrator, plus you get early access to Fontself Catapult PRO, to sell your fonts and install them on your mobile devices.

Oh, and before you ask, the letterpress cards were only for our Kickstarter backers. Nice try =)

That's it for today.
Share the love & stay tuned,

Franz

---

PS: Ok, since we have some space left down there, here's another look at Fontself's early days. In January 2006, after a super insightful chat with Marc, I came up with this idea to use the tool I knew best at the time (a 3D modelling software) to prototype a bitmap-font text rendering engine.

 This text was actually computed in 3D STUDIO MAX, Autodesk's 3D modelling & rendering software, using a particle generator to position each hand-drawn letter in the 3D space. All of them started to fly magically in the virtual space, until they finally formed a legible text =)

As soon as I saw we could build such visual goodness with custom code, I knew we would stick for a while working on this "font thing" ;) 

9 years passed, and I am still so excited to bring many more fun experiments to life, you know, as real products that will help you to express your creativity. We are really not done yet, so please keep doing amazing and silly artwork, they will inspire all the tools & technologies we will build together...

More insights & back story in future updates.
Cheers!

YES! Your ABC on my PC. That will happen!!!
over 8 years ago – Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 09:58:31 AM

Guys, what a first month together… 

You have been 760 adventurous bakers to embrace the vision behind Fontself & to trust me to bring it to life, and - together - you reached more than 300% of the original funding goal.

We didn't get our last minute hero to reach the Stretch Goal #1, but rest assured, Fontself Catapult will ship, along with more creative goodness in 2016.

It’s just been 29 days since I started this Kickstarter campaign, but today feels like the dawn of a new era for Fontself, and for me personally too. Everyday, I will now know that at least 760 people are watching over my shoulder, and this gives me a real kick to launch kick-ass creative tools!

So, before I crash on the sofa, I just wanted to thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

And stay tuned, as we will push more updates regarding your rewards and their delivery, more exciting news, and more cool stuff here in your inbox, via the Kickstarter updates, but also on our Twitter stream, our Facebook page, our website and all over the WorldWideWeb.

❤︎ THANK YOU !

Anyone still there? #WAKEUPCALL
over 8 years ago – Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 12:33:13 AM

It's almost over, yet we still need a HERO!

Ok, there is less than an hour to go and the counter is reaching 37,448 €.
We are both really close & far away from Fontself Catapult, with 2,552 € still missing...

So what will happen if we don't reach the 40,000 € stretch goal?

- No Catapult? :(

- Hmmmm, that can't happen. It won't happen. Right? RIGHT???? 
What if we had a generous last-minute contributor who would pledge for the 4,999 € MARKETING PARTNER pledge, or 2 deans who pledged for the 1,499 € SCHOOL PACK. That would change everything, right?

- OHHH YES, YES, PLEAAAAAAASE!!!!!