The Typecast: Grow Your Art Business
Dear hand letterers, designers, and artists of all sorts—despite what your grandma thinks, we know there’s a whole lot more to what you do than just “drawing pretty pictures.” This podcast, hosted by Katie Johnson and Ilana Griffo of Goodtype, is about what it *really* means to be a working creative. From finding clients to pricing your work and nerding the heck out about kerning, we’re covering everything that goes into building a successful and sustainable business around your passion.
And we’re not just doing it alone! We’ll be tapping some of your current (and soon-to-be) favorite artists for inspiration, insight, and laughs. We’re big on giving takeaways that you can actually put into action, and we’re even bigger on having a good time while we do it. Tune into the Typecast twice a month for a tittle-ating time (yep, we’re gonna type-pun your face off), and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review so we can show our moms how famous we are!
The Typecast: Grow Your Art Business
What If Your Subtitles Could Express Emotion? With Frederik Merkel | The Typecast Episode 73
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What if your subtitles could whisper or shout, just like the person speaking? That’s exactly what Frederik Merkel (aka Freddi) is building. We met Freddi at South by Southwest and were instantly blown away by his startup, Phont, which is developing expressive caption technology that analyzes audio and translates it into dynamic, emotionally-expressive subtitles. Think kinetic type but automated, accessible, and built for real content.
In this episode, we dig into the full story: how Freddi went from finishing a master’s thesis in type design to co-founding a startup with no business experience and what it really takes to go from concept to product. We also get deep into the neuroscience side of things: synesthesia, aphantasia, the Ira Glass gap, and how understanding different brains perceive the world shaped Freddi’s research from the very beginning.
All that and more when you listen to this episode:
- How Freddi’s master’s thesis became a startup idea
- What expressive captions are and why they matter
- The transition from type designer to co-founder
- How Phont navigated public funding in Germany
- Building demos without a parametric font (yet)
- The Phont Adobe plugin that’s coming soon
- Synesthesia research and how it shaped the font design process
- How to support or pilot Phont right now
Connect with Frederik Merkel
Phont: https://phont.ai/
Phont on IG: https://www.instagram.com/phont.official/
Freddi on IG: https://www.instagram.com/freddimerkuri/
Freddi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederik-merkel-design/
Mentioned in this episode:
- Phont: https://phont.ai/
- Michael Havakamp - Synesthetic Design
- Melanie Scheer - Aphantasia
- OHno Type Company
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