Font Management App

Insights

The classic model of font licensing is to buy a font from a Type Foundery for a determined variable price and thus acquire the right to install this font on several computers and use it on the website for a specified number of website clicks. The number of computers and clicks is determined by the price of the license. The problem is that once the font has been purchased, it is no longer possible to track its use. Control over the font lies with the provider (type foundry), not with the font designer and not with the end customer.

For this reason, the type fonderies have increasingly switched to tools / models in recent years that make fonts / font management available to the user via cloud synchronization: Adobe TypeKit, Fontstand, Monotype Fonts,…. In these tools, however, you are never the owner of the font but can only rent it within the pricing models chosen by the provider. Control over the font lies with the provider (type foundry), not with the font designer and not with the end customer.

A first type blockchain project is emerging on Ethereum: Font Community.

Challenges faced by the Creatives:

Development of a fair licensing model in which the trade takes place primarily between the creative (designer) and the end user, where the middle man (font provider/ Type Foundery) is only visible in the form of the platform but not in the form of the licensor.

Solution scope

The solution aims to bring together the creative/type-artist with the end-user, whereas the creative/type-artist never gives up on owning/managing control over the fonts and the end-user has security around licencing.

This project will serve as a first implementation of a digital rights service built on native assets and smart contracts. Furthermore we will use an authentication mechanism. The tools we build for this project will be applicable to other use cases, so leveraging on that tools we anticipate other dapp creation projects during 2021 and beyond that will fulfill the challenge.

The benefits to the creative/type-artist are:

- flexible and transparent pricing model: creative/typeartist decides about the prices and not the middle-man (as it appears to be the case today).

- Font traceability

- complete buy-out possibilities

- strengthen the type-artist community by shared contribution reward system

Implementation

Roadmap:

Phase 1: Development

- Project Design: final project scoping; technical stack consisting of new and existing components

- Development (back-end): initiate Gimbalabs playground workshop, build a working prototype on Plutus Testnet, integrate mentioned tools according to solution scope.

- Development (front-end): Refine UX/UI Design

- Release V1 of GType on mainnet, Fall 2021

Phase 2: Marketing, Education and Adoption (this phase will be included to future funding round that will be rolling around August/September 2021)

- Define actions to directly market of GType Dapp to end users

- Develop educational materials toward broader adoption and application of Cardano tooling

Timeline:

The project will be developed starting when funding is received and will have a duration of 3 months. Launch date of the Dapp will be "date of receive funding" + 3 months (expecting this to be September/October 2021).

Budget (3 months - Phase 1 development):

-Back end development: $6,000

- Front end development: $6,000

- Project management: $6,000

- Subject matter expert insight & design: $2,500

- Total: $20,500

Metrics (3, 6, 12 months):

Attracting Users: number of registered end users of GType (foreseen to be initiated this funding round and further tracktion expected with phase 2 funding)

3 months: up to 10 users

6 months: up to 50 users

12 months: up to 300 users

Tooling leverage for Dapp creation (could be diversified for various use cases/applications of different fields): Additional applications built on tooling and documentation emerging from this project.

3 months: up to 1 Dapp

6 months: up to 2 Dapp

12 months: up to 4 Dapp

Risk Management:

The risk inherent to this project is almost nonexistent. We are two engaged typartist passionate about our work and the development of this project, even if one of us would need to step back from the project one of us will manage to fulfill the project from the expert perspective.

Regarding implementation risk: Gimbalabs is a well positioned Developer incubator who has already established a solid base of engaged Developers. If we face a shortage in the implementation team, Gimbalabs will ensure the development be done by other team members required.

Team

The experts – entrepreneurs

Thomas Müller (Tom) & Alexander Flohr (Alex) both designers and typeartist with 15+ years of experience in the field. Both will bring the crucial business insights and challenges they see Creatives facing in the space related to Font Management.

Tom: https://thomasmueller-grafik.de/rewe-dein-markt-display-typeface-for-campaign

Alex: https://www.behance.net/AlexFlohr

Implementing team

The execution of the project will be led by Gimbalabs Playground team who have established a structured method to facilitate the development of Cardano tools and applications.

James Dunseith

Teacher, coach, and facilitator with a passion for helping people gain agency in problem solving.

James creates learning experiences by facilitating Gimbalabs Playground, creating asynchronous learning resources, and helping to launch experiments that allow people to contribute their diverse talent to share goals.

Relevant Experience: diverse experience in creating systems and tools that support students and teachers to learn by doing. During his 11 years teaching high school math, computer science, creative writing, and bike repair, James experimented successfully with project-based learning and mastery-based grading, showing how systems like these can change the way students approach learning. He was named a Master Teacher by both Math for America and by BetterLesson, where he published two math curricula that are still in use today. Before founding Gimbalabs, James focused on teacher training at BetterLesson and then at MIND Research Institute, in both cases building successful programs while supporting teachers to use new tools facilitate deeper learning, and is excited to apply lessons from those experiences to the project of sharing Cardano with the world.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-dunseith-0135651/

Phila Reichling

Project Management expert helping teams to guide and structure workshop and project experiences

Phila contributes to the Gimbalabs Playground experience leading overall project management and execution to ensure focused workshop including achieving goals and ensure a smooth participant experience.

Phila has eight years of experience leading projects as a Senior Project Manager, is a certified PMP with MBA and international work experience in Spain, India and the USA. She started her career in the music industry and has worked in Consulting, Family services, as well as IT services (SaaS).

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phila-reichling-093a869/

Sahil Thakkar

Software developer with extensive experience, hands-on leader and eager to explore new things.

Sahil will lead the back-end development for the Gtype project and be a part of Gimbalabs playground team.

He has acquired immense experience working as a software developer. His most recent career responsibilities include working as a backend Software Developer and a DevOps Engineer at Brightedge. Alongside his acumen to excel in usual office jobs, Sahil also has great leadership qualities.

When talking about his extensive Software Development experience, Sahil has in-depth knowledge of working with different software languages such as Python, Java, and Bash. In addition, his versatile knowledge also includes proficiency in DevOps tools like Docker and configuration management languages like Ansible, Terraform. Architecture Design and taking an application from a PoC to production for thousands of users is something he has successfully accomplished multiple times in the past. Monitoring, tuning system performance, and resolving bottlenecks come naturally to Sahil.

Currently, he is operating his own Stakepool for Cardano. Apart from career goals, he also likes to keep himself involved in learning new concepts, solving complex problems, and implementing code changes hands-on. Exploring new things is what excites him the most.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thakkarsahil/

Front End Developer

A front-end developer will join the team to ensure this part of the solution.