Company overview
Monotype provides design assets, products, and experts used by organizations and customers worldwide. They have a library of 10,000 used in books, newspapers, apps, phones, games, etc. They own multiple products including fonts.com.
Opportunity
As a worldwide font distributor with millions of monthly users, Monotype identified a need for Fonts.com to have a faster and user-friendly way for customers to search, try, and buy fonts online. Monotype also needed a lightweight content management system that would allow even the least tech-savvy contributors to create content for the website.
Approach
Devbridge assembled a dedicated team of senior developers, QA analysts, and a team lead that collaborated with Monotype’s internal technology department. Our team advised on and utilized web technology solutions that could be used to enhance site performance, improve usability, allow for integration with a legacy commerce engine, and enable contributors to publish typography news. With over 50 technology professionals, Devbridge can deliver even the most complex of projects. For Fonts.com we collaborated with Monotype's internal technology team and advised on web technology solutions to be used for an e-commerce website with high traffic and multiple legacy system integrations.
Solution
When two companies come together, build a repertoire, and trust each other - you end up building a bigger enterprise and having the confidence to present more advanced solutions to your client. With Devbridge as a partner, it’s a really great opportunity for us to be able to expand into digital projects in the future.
Better CMS integration and features
Better CMS features in-line content editing, allowing even the least technology-savvy publishers to create stunning content for Fonts.com.
Behind all the delicate typefaces slumbers a powerful yet lightweight Content Management System. Better CMS is used throughout the website and allows content publishers to push content to the Learn About Fonts & Typography section of the site.
We created custom widgets that allow us to easily aggregate the Fonts.com content and dynamically promote it across the site. From type designers to studios, and the latest ideas in the type community - Better CMS works in tandem with the commerce engine.
The features included:
Content publishing and approval workflow
Cloud storage for hosting pictures
Dynamic sitemap and navigation management
Seamless integration with commerce engine
Advanced content caching
Find fonts
With a product catalog of over 150,000 fonts we had to make sure that search was instantaneous and intuitive. Fonts.com uses jQuery Autocomplete written by our own Tomas Kirda - a component that has become the preferred AutoComplete jQuery script on the web. Furthermore, advanced caching techniques allow for a 0-delay response to the search query, handled by Solr search.
Results
From AppFabric for Distributed Caching, to per page optimized JavaScript - Fonts.com is an example of software engineering for speed and performance. With 20 million unique monthly visitors, it has to be! Devbridge designed and implemented an advanced caching strategy that severely limits the amount of requests that actually reach the backend database.
Dedicated caching server
Periodic renewal of data in caching server
Optimized JavaScript structures
Page-specific JS loading
