WhatTheFont: a familiar tool, a fresh start
I relied on WhatTheFont early in my design career. Years later, I got to redesign it: a simpler path to identifying a font, a refreshed identity, and a chance to revisit frustrations I knew first-hand.
THE WORK AT A GLANCE
- My role. Product design lead across research, experience strategy, feature direction, and end-to-end design, with a refresh of the product’s visual identity.
- The problem. A valuable font identification tool had a cumbersome journey, limited ways to bring images in, and an experience that needed to work better on mobile.
- The call. Build around the existing recognition capability and simplify the path from an image to useful results.
- The outcome. In the original post-launch comparison, revenue was around 15–20% higher, alongside improvements in conversion and engagement.
A TOOL I GREW UP WITH
By August 2000, WhatTheFont was already helping people identify typefaces from uploaded images. It had been useful for a long time before I got to work on it.
Early in my career, I would find a piece of design I loved and get stuck on a simple question: what font is that? WhatTheFont helped me put a name to the type I admired. It became a tool I relied on, along with a set of small frustrations I learned to work around.
Years later, the opportunity to redesign it came with that history. I knew why someone would come to it, because I had been that person.
FRUSTRATION AS A STARTING POINT
I would have an image URL or a screenshot on my clipboard, but neither was enough to begin. I had to save a file, then upload it. The work of identifying a font started with managing an image.
Uri Levine argues that problems people meet every day are especially worth solving, and this was one I met every day. But I was still a sample of one. Eight user interviews and journey data helped us look beyond my own habits, and one finding stood out because I recognised it.
Many of the people I spoke to were no longer heavy users now that they were more senior. Like me, they had leaned on WhatTheFont most when they were starting out, using it to build their familiarity with type. A large share of the people arriving were still learning about fonts.
WhatTheFont was also an important entry point into MyFonts. Making that journey easier mattered to both the people using it and the business.
My own history with the tool turned out to be a common one.
A SHORTER PATH TO THE ANSWER
The core job stayed the same: bring in an image, select the text, identify the font. There were refinements behind the scenes, but the redesign centred on making that capability easier to use.
- Make starting easier. We brought file upload, drag-and-drop, and pasted image URLs into a clearer entry experience.
- Make selection clearer. We gave the image a larger workspace and brought the controls closer to the text being identified.
- Get to useful results. We simplified the route from selecting text to seeing matches and made the results easier to explore.
We also adapted the experience for smaller screens. Finding a font should be possible in the moment you notice it, including when the only device you have is your phone.
A FAMILIAR NAME, A FRESH IDENTITY
I also wanted to refresh the identity. WhatTheFont was a name I knew and remembered; keeping it gave us continuity while we reconsidered how the product looked and felt.
The refreshed wordmark brings different letterforms together. Artwork around the entry experience shows typography in use, much as people encounter it before coming to identify a font. The visual identity belonged in that experience, from the first impression through to the workspace.
A familiar name gave us continuity. The experience around it could change.
WHAT THE RESULTS TOLD US
Against the previous experience, the original post-launch reporting showed revenue around 15–20% higher, ecommerce conversion around 10–15% higher, and bounce rates around 15–20% lower.
These are approximate changes from the period after launch, not proof that the redesign alone caused them. I took them as encouraging signals, with plenty still to revisit.
WHERE I WOULD TAKE IT NEXT
- Help people judge the match. Several results can look close without making the differences clear. A similarity score against the source image could help people narrow their choices, provided it reflected differences they could actually see.
- Revisit mobile. We made the experience more mobile-friendly, but I don’t think we fully nailed it. I would simplify the steps further and take another careful look at the app.
- Identify type wherever it appears. A browser extension could read font declarations in CSS and recognise fonts in images, without a trip through the website. Further out, a sketch or a few visual controls could let someone describe a letterform they can only picture.
Each idea would need the same scrutiny as my original frustration. The question that brought me to WhatTheFont early in my career has stayed the same. The ways we could help someone answer it are still growing.