Chat with Tectonic

When I saw that Nana Parry was offering free one-to-one sessions to new businesses I signed up. Granted, I might have not have been who he was expecting when he set up his scheme, but nothing ventured nothing gained.

The advice I sought from him wasn’t to do with this presentation as it is too late in the schedule to change without impacting other submissions. Instead, I asked him for advice with how to carry this idea into the real world.

He liked that I had identified the three separate target users as a starting point and that now I can drill down more into their needs. Right now, the project is based on assumptions, which he said was fine, and now I need to validate those assumptions.

I need to step aside from the idea and. work out who needs it most and who needs it regularly and to go into as much depth as possible. He suggests speaking to users without showing them the project so that I don’t ;ed their answers and create a product that truly answers their needs.

CNVS.online

One resource he suggested that I look at is CNVS.online which is a tool to develop Strategyzer-like business canvasses and a way to create a one page business plan.

Although they focus on different media, he suggested that I look at the company journey of Unsplash to see where they started and how they got there. Nana appreciated that what I am trying to do focuses directly on typography and agrees that could seem restrictive, but I should make that focus a strength of the platform.

Right now I’m a little too burnt out and concerned about focussing on the final week to action his points. I am so glad that I took a chance to make the connection and will work on the project. He said that he’d like to hear from me in the future, so that’s good, right?

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Filo-Type: Post-it map

I’ve been thinking of a tool for a couple of weeks now that would fit Brief 2: an app where you can take photos of typography you see out and about.

Why did I come up with this tool? My camera roll is constantly full of random photos of typography I have taken as reference or inspiration and they then proliferate all over the cloud in amongst selfies, cute pets etc. I want them somewhere separate, and ideally in a place I can tag them. If I know anything about people who like type, their camera folders are in a similar situation to mine, and this could be a tool where we share typographic inspiration.

So filo’type is born: a file of type, and it sounds like -phile, the Greek suffix to indicate someone who is very passionate about something. Typophile is taken by another typographic endeavour, so I have switched the words around. Filo’type does of course sound like philotype, which is a theoretical way of categorising yourself by philosophical school. It doesn’t seem widespread and in a different discipline, so I feel I can stand by the name.

Here’s my post-note wall of features:

This is the beginning of the process, so it’s a rough start…