Foundry List
Village is a type co-op.
We are the union of ten young type foundries who have decided to go it alone, together. vllg.com is the information channel and boutique storefront for this group of equals. Hi!
We are based in New York City, but are a global group, with members from Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States.
Village is: Chester & Tracy Jenkins, founding members; Mário Feliciano; Sibylle Hagmann; Greg Lindy; Karsten Lücke; Christian Schwartz; Kris Sowersby; and Underware (Akiem Helmling, Bas Jacobs, & Sami Kortemäki). Village also runs the Incubator and Thirstype.
Our Mission
Make Village - vllg.com - the first destination for designers seeking high-quality, high-originality typefaces. We will maintain a small but influential and hugely talented group of young designers who will continue to develop interesting new designs in the coming years, and who can choose to collaborate and consult on each others' projects. Vllg.com is run as a boutique, giving equal space to each of the foundries, and equal weight to each of the types. We aim to offer types with extended glyphsets and rich OpenType functionality to best serve our customers around the globe. Village is 100% independent, with no corporate ownership or underwriting; Village is owned and operated by its members.
Context
The world of type has changed radically in the last decade. Back when the internet was a modem dial-up away, getting typefaces seen and used meant publishing through either a large multinational or a boutique foundry. Those companies had reach through advertising and printed catalogues and were able to service customers with overnight FedEx dispatches of floppy disquettes. Now, it's no longer necessary to publish with a foundry; by going it alone the designer retains control over design and message, and gets more of any sales income. Anyone can release their own types, but it's difficult to get the word out. One can sell through a type portal, but the scale of such venues makes it difficult to stand out.
Village difference for customers
What does Village have that other distributors don't? We offer guaranteed quality and originality to our customers, along with intuitive and pleasant browsing and shopping experiences. By limiting our membership to 12, we are choosing to keep our library (relatively) small, and by distributing a curated group of great foundries, our library is of the highest possible calibre. We focus on quality not quantity, and we focus on type; while we do offer some products, this is secondary to our core business of typeface publication and distribution. We do not offer stock photography or illustration, and we do not clutter our site with unwanted and unneeded flotsam. We offer our customers a personal shopping experience; they can pick up the phone and call us, or send us an email, or instant-message us, and we will deal with their questions with speed.
Village difference for members
To our members we offer sizable electronic real estate, a handsome and smart venue for their types, and a designer-centric relationship between designer/foundry and distributor. (As designers, we know how we want to be treated, and treat our fellow members of Village that way.) The limited number of foundries distributed through vllg.com should result in higher individual sales figures. The share split is fair for both parties, with "hit" typefaces making the designer/foundry increasingly greater rewards the more sales there are.