How Sato became our top best seller
And why it's hard to beat
When I started making fonts around 2020, I fell into the same trap most graphic designers do when exploring the field of type design: I went straight to the display category. Probably because display fonts are expressive, and when we make fonts we’re already thinking about applications like color, branding and poster design. They also appear to be easier to make: they’re not intended for paragraphs, so they give you a sense of freedom to explore shapes and forms without having to think too much about how letterforms are constructed and, more importantly, why certain shapes feel more legible than others (spoiler: it’s because we’ve been trained to read them for centuries!). Anyway, in my personal case, I wanted to avoid making another sans serif font. I thought there were way too many of those already, and besides the market saturation, they looked kinda boring and all the same to me.
So my first fonts were all either serifs, like Zorzal (originally called Nimba), Zafrada and Deliria, or very display, like Matria and Normandi. But as I kept making fonts, the hunger to learn increased. I wanted to understand what makes fonts legible, how I could improve my drawings, why there are two kinds of «a» and «g», and how to extend my fonts’ language support. My curiosity led me to follow as many type foundries as I could on the internet, and to read a lot about the history of the Latin alphabet, and eventually the Cyrillic one, which I fell in love with (but that’s a story for another day). I finally found Ohno’s Instagram page, which had a neat guide on how to draw the letters A to Z. And when I learned they had a podcast, I went straight to it and met James Edmondson’s voice.
In one of the episodes he talks about Degular, their most popular font. James explained that it was a surprise to him, because he thought his other fonts were better looking and more fun. But then he dropped the insight that changed everything: there is a market-wide bias toward grotesque fonts. For some reason, font buyers prefer grotesques over any other kind. He even went as far as to say that every established foundry out there has its grotesque money maker, and Ohno Type was no exception. What! I, of course, did the research, and it blew my mind. It was true. The kind of font I was avoiding was the one making the most sales everywhere. Why? Well, the answer is not surprising. Sans serif fonts, and especially the grotesque, geometric and humanist ones, all have one thing in common: they fit many projects. If you get Deliria, you might only be able to use it on a few projects that require that font’s specific personality. However, if you get a family with a more anonymous voice, you might be able to use it on many projects. You will probably go back to it time and again, while that super awesome display typeface sits in the font folder waiting for an opportunity to bring its personality out there.
I wanted to test the theory, so I worked on my very first grotesque, rolling my eyes through the whole process. The queer spirit inside me fought back every attempt to make the design voiceless. It had to have flavor, an identity, something to stand for. Balancing clean lines and unique quirks was not easy. My references were one of the most used fonts among my peers, Gotham, mixed with a display face I loved and used on many projects, Aquawax. In the process I quickly learned that making such fonts was a lot harder than I thought. Simple letterforms are difficult to pull off, because you have fewer elements to make a whole set of letters feel cohesive. But at last I finished the family, and even did it dirty by calling it Sato. The name means stray dog (usually of mixed origin), an idea that came to me when I realized I had just built a hybrid font that belonged everywhere, and nowhere specifically. In the end, Sato has a friendly voice, just like most satos.
Aaaaand, the prophecy came true: Sato became the best-selling font in the store within a matter of months. I sold more Sato licenses in one year than any other font had sold in the previous two. And each time I check my sales report, there it is, again and again. It’s no surprise it has the most entries in the In the Wild gallery. It also got me my first design recognition, at the Ibero-American Design Biennial (BID) in Madrid! People just love Sato, and with time I learned to love it too. I get it: it’s easy on the eyes, it has personality, and it pairs with every font in the store.