The promise: 'An edding writes on anything'.

The idea: With its own typeface the edding 850 now writes on the computer too. The pen was 'digitized' by the Swiss design collective Büro Destruct - and we made a documentary about it that links to the download-page. It is called type-for-type.com and that is also the deal. As soon someone writes a message in the collaborative realtime-text-editor the newest edding can be downloaded: the edding850 typeface. With every font-download comes a PDF-magazine that features selected designs from the project gallery using the font.

The target: The font menu of designers all over the world. This way the first edding permanent marker made its way onto the screens of the target-group permanently.

The Font was developed by Swiss designer collective Büro Destruct. We chose them because of two reasons: They have the expertise to create a font that satisfies the demands of the target-group (the font includes over 230 characters, with ligatures). And they are internationally respected and networked. Using this, they brought additional content for the documentary about the process involved in creating the font. This documentary initiated the distribution of the font by linking to the download-page. This page works just as its name suggests: type-for-type.com. As soon as the user writes something in the collaborative HTML5-realtime-texteditor, the download is unlocked. We also created a space for creative content: Designs using the font can be uploaded to the project gallery and have the chance to appear in the exclusive PDF-magazine that comes with every download of the font.

After the first few weeks: The collaborative text-document grew hundreds of pages, the font was downloaded about 8000 times and the five-minute documentary on Vimeo gained over 40,000 views. It worked completely viral. At this point, there was not even an official press release regarding the project, but there were thousands of tweets and blog posts. Even better for edding: The font is actually being used! Countless design-examples appeared on the internet and even Germany’s biggest daily newspaper used the font for its insert magazine. After all a tool is only relevant if it is used.