☕️ Let's talk about fontgate

There are many things you could say about what it’s like to build a media company from scratch, but calling it boring isn’t one of them. That’s why Zara and I thought it would be cool to document some of the weird and wonderful chapters of TDA’s lifespan in our eight-part newsletter series, Building TDA.

This week’s edition? Fontgate. It’s the kind of moment that keeps founders up at night, but taught us so, so much about building trust with TDA’s community.

Have a read and let me know what other questions you have about what it’s been like to build TDA. If you want to sign up to read all eight editions, you can join here, and you’ll get one edition a week for the next eight weeks.

By late 2023, TDA had come a long way from us asking a friend to draw our first logo in Canva (shout out to Frankie, though). We had more than half a million Instagram followers, a thriving newsletter, daily podcast, and partnerships with major brands. We were working with some of Australia's biggest names, and frankly, our brand identity looked like it belonged in 2018. It was time for a refresh.

So we partnered with a creative agency who were tasked with developing what we called a "grown-up" brand identity. New colours, new tagline ("now it makes sense"), new logos, and yes — a new font.

The rebrand launched in January 2024, and we were genuinely excited. After six years with the same visual identity, this felt like TDA finally looking as professional as we'd become.

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Enter Fontgate. 

Within hours of posting our first content with the new font, the comments started flooding in. And I mean flooding. Every single Instagram post became a referendum on typography.

It wasn't just a few complaints. It was hundreds of comments on every post, for weeks. Our DMs were full of font feedback. People were genuinely upset — not just mildly annoyed, but actually distressed about the change.

Multiple followers told us the new font was genuinely difficult to read, especially on mobile devices. People with dyslexia and other reading difficulties were finding our content literally harder to consume. One person wrote: "This new change makes your posts inaccessible for people with disabilities."

Here's where I'll be completely honest: we didn't listen at first.

Our initial reaction was that this was just resistance to change. Every brand refresh faces some pushback, right? We'd invested months of work and significant budget into this rebrand. The fonts were professionally chosen, the design was cohesive, and we genuinely believed it looked better.

"We need to give it a real shot," we told ourselves. "People just need time to adjust."

For two months, we stuck with the new font while our audience continued to express how unhappy they were. Our journalists started to get more and more frustrated with audiences discussing the font in the comments section instead of discussing the topics that they’d just written about.

In March 2024, a new social media crisis landed in our laps. Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, withdrew from some commercial deals they had with Australia’s largest news companies. The news companies called on the Federal Government to respond by enforcing the ‘Bargaining Code’, essentially forcing Meta to the negotiating table to work out new deals. Meta said that if the Government did that, it might block access to all news channels in Australia on its platforms — even companies that didn’t have a commercial deal in place, like TDA. 

Yet again, TDA faced a threat and needed to figure out a way to bring more of our Instagram followers over to our newsletter. We prepared a post explaining the situation, and there was one way we knew we’d get everyone’s attention. We brought back the old font. 

The response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. "Good on you for taking on the feedback," people wrote. "This is the best news ever."

Media outlets picked up the story, dubbing it "Fontgate." Mumbrella wrote that it was "nice to see a publisher listening to its audience." AdNews used us as a case study in brand consultation. How’s that for bluffing your way through things?

This experience taught us several crucial lessons about branding and audience consultation:

Fontgate actually strengthened our relationship with our audience. By admitting we got it wrong and changing course, we demonstrated that we genuinely care about their experience more than our ego.

It also taught us that our audience is incredibly engaged. The fact that thousands of people cared enough about our font to complain shows how invested they are in TDA. Not many brands have audiences that are passionate about the details, and we are so lucky to have that level of genuine brand love and care.

Test, test, test. Before making major changes, especially visual ones, test them with the people who actually consume your content. And when your audience tells you something isn't working – especially around accessibility – listen quickly and act faster.