Case Study: Hoefler & Co. achieves streamlined creative workflows and faster typeface production with Trello

The Business Of Font Making With Hoefler & Co.

Hoefler & Co., the renowned type foundry behind typography.com and cloud.typography (makers of Gotham, Hoefler Text and hundreds more), faces a uniquely complex business: typefaces can take years to develop, must be continually updated for new uses (like adding a rupee symbol), and require painstaking, pixel‑perfect attention as they’re adapted for screens and pushed to a global CDN. Managing dozens of parallel design efforts, webfont builds and content initiatives like Discover.typography demanded a simple, intuitive workflow so designers could focus on craft instead of process.

Jonathan Hoefler standardized the team’s work in Trello, using a five‑list “Goals / Things to be discussed / Open questions / Decisions / Completed” flow plus shared meeting boards for one‑on‑ones. The visual, lightweight system gives at‑a‑glance status across two‑week sprints, keeps priorities clear, balances workload, and scales from detailed glyph work to product releases—resulting in smoother collaboration, more predictable releases, and preserved typographic quality.

Hoefler & Co.

Jonathan Hoefler

Hoefler & Co.