Adobe Fonts (previously Adobe Typekit) is an online subscription service that offers access to a library of thousands of high-quality fonts. The service is integrated in all Adobe Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

In the summer 2018 we sought to inspire our community of millions of creatives to incorporate typography into their work, with the aim of increasing awareness and usage of our font service and Creative Cloud apps.

And because Adobe is synonymous with creativity, the campaign needed to reflect our heritage and communicate that design and typography are central to our DNA.

In the 1920s, the iconic Bauhaus school of design laid the foundation for modern design. But the school's progressive ideas were a threat to the Nazi regime and in 1932, just 14 years after it was founded, the school was shut down. Many treasures, including fine art, crafts, and typography that would be considered modern classics today, were left behind — lost to history.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the legendary school, Adobe partnered with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and world-renowned typographer Erik Spiekermann to complete and digitize iconic alphabets buried in the school's archives. Using original letter fragments and hand-drawn sketches, a team of international typographers and design students completed and digitized five new font families.

Hidden for nearly a century, these timeless typefaces from Bauhaus masters are now in the hands of a new generation of designers.

Target audience: Creative professionals (enterprise, SMB or freelance)

Target media:

1. Creative industry media (i.e. Dezeen)

2. Art world media (i.e. Culture Trip)

Preserving classic works of art allows them to take on new meaning and influence people in new ways. To keep the classics in the public eye, museums like The Met and Rijksmuseum have released their collections online into the public domain. This campaign was created to leverage on and link to this phenomenon.

The primary target media was creative industry media where the story was offered under embargo.

Approach

To get our audience curious about Adobe Fonts and to learn about their high-quality content we needed to create something with a soul, something beyond the technology and software. By creating a unique font collection we created both a powerful PR tool and a compelling story that inspired a new generation of artists to use Adobe Fonts.

The new Bauhaus font sets were released in five phases, announced on our microsite and through PR, social, and email programs. The fonts were available for download on the Adobe Fonts site and were free to all Adobe Creative Cloud members.

In an integrated online campaign that ran from June 15 to September 31, 2018, the typefaces and story about the project were spread globally through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Adobe live streams, and showcased in live events in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Hamburg.

The target audience was activated through a five-part series of competitions on Instagram, Twitter, and Behance, where we challenged them to use the typefaces to design a brand identity.

We also inspired our target audience with influencer collaborations, live streams, campaign commercials, YouTube tutorials, and a 13-minute behind-the-scenes documentary.

Goals: To surprise and delight the creative community and Creative Cloud members, drive font downloads and active use of Adobe apps, and showcase the full value of Creative Cloud.

Font downloads

Target: 10,000 downloads

Result: 886,290 downloads. Exceeding target by 8,762 %. We continue to see 2,500 font downloads per day.

Social engagement

Worldwide, the campaign generated over 15,600 social posts with 147.2 million potential impressions.

Target: 500,000 video views across social channels

Actual number: 1 million +

Target: 500 design challenge submissions

Result: Over 2,000 submissions, exceeding target by 300%.

Campaign microsite visits

Target: 50,000 visits

Result: 300,000 visits, an increase of 500%

PR

Target: 25 articles in relevant target media

Result: 162 articles, exceeding target by 548%.

Gross reach of the articles exceeds 800 million potential impressions. The overall sentiment was positive, with most articles mentioning the launch of fonts and the call-to-action on how to download them.