This is a sure sign that type awareness is now deep in our culture: Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc. and Vodafone UK are introducing a new way to personalize the mobile user interface on select mobile handsets. With Monotype Imaging’s new FlipFont™ solution accessible from Vodafone live!, Vodafone becomes the first operator in Europe to offer downloadable, mobile-optimized fonts to replace the factory-installed, default font.
“FlipFont has the potential to springboard fonts into the forefront of mobile personalization,” said John Seguin, executive vice president of Monotype Imaging. “As mobile phones become more of an indispensable part of our lives, it’s natural for us to want to reflect our personality in these devices, and font choice provides an attractive avenue to do this. Together with Vodafone UK, we’re introducing a new level of creative freedom. FlipFont is a significant entry for both companies to empower consumers to personalize their own handsets with fonts.”
The FlipFont solution debuts with a selection of 10 scalable fonts downloadable to the Nokia® N73™, N95™ and N95 8GB handsets. Typeface designs range from the ITC Stylus™ font, with its hand-lettered feel, to the attention-grabbing Musclehead™ design, starting at £1.99 for a single font. The FlipFont solution also includes a utility that allows customers to ‘flip’ to use a different font, or access additional fonts that can be previewed, licensed and downloaded. Additional fonts are expected to become available on an ongoing basis.
“Ever since mobile became mass market, consumers have enjoyed personalizing their phones,” said Mike Eaton, head of mobile content at Vodafone UK. “From clip-on phone covers in the early days to ringtones and wallpapers more recently, customers have always appreciated innovation to have a truly unique mobile experience, and FlipFont brings just that.”
Julie Strawson, director of marketing Europe at Monotype Imaging Ltd. said, “Users have tried to change their phone font and have ‘broken’ their phone in the process, so we’ve collaborated with Vodafone UK to ensure FlipFont is safe, fun and easy to use. By choosing a font to suit their needs, users can improve their mobile experience and make their phone more usable. We’ve worked closely with Vodafone UK to optimize FlipFont and together be the first to offer this solution in Europe. With solid growth projected for mobile data services, we believe fonts can play an integral role to help OEMs and operators such as Vodafone UK enable a greater level of personalization. Our goal is to extend coverage to a wider range of operating systems and phones worldwide.”
Mobile data services, which account for any service on a mobile device other than voice-based services, are expected to exceed $200 billion in 2008 for the first time, according to the research firm, Informa Telecoms & Media. Mobile data services revenues were approximately $157 billion in 2007. Growth drivers, as reported by the research firm, include the acceleration of deployment of advanced technologies, an increasingly competitive market and a growing demand for mobile data services.
The initially supported phones are based on Symbian OS™ and the Nokia S60® platform which support Monotype Imaging’s iType® scalable font engine. “The openness of Symbian OS combined with the flexibility of iType have been instrumental in turning the ingenious concept of FlipFont into reality,” said Mike Whittingham, vice president of ecosystem development at Symbian. “Monotype Imaging and Vodafone exemplify what can be done to leverage Symbian OS to further differentiate products and create new revenue streams.”
As part of the inaugural FlipFont solution, Monotype Imaging’s iType technology enables the downloaded font to be linked with the default font, providing users with the ability to access non-Latin characters, such as Greek or Cyrillic, which are not contained in the downloaded font. While sufficient in most cases, as each FlipFont typeface supports Latin-based European languages, this feature preserves the ability to use characters from the wider character set available from the default font.
This article was last modified on December 17, 2022
This article was first published on October 30, 2008
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