The Lost Typography of Bauhaus is a PR-driven initiative created to change the perception of Adobe Typekit and the behavior of the target audience, creative professionals, by putting lost pieces of art history in their hands. The success of the campaign relied primarily on earned media tactics, using little to none paid media.
Background
Adobe Typekit is a online service which offers a subscription library of high-quality fonts. The service is integrated in all Adobe Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator.
In summer 2018 Adobe wanted to inspire a new generation of creatives to design using typography. A campaign with the aim to create awareness, shift perception and increase the usage of Adobe Typekit amongst creative professionals.
Describe the creative idea
In the 1920s and 1930s the iconic design institute Bauhaus laid the foundation for modern design. Unfortunately the school’s existence was brief. The progressive ideas of Bauhaus were considered threatening to the Nazi agenda and in 1932 the school was abruptly shut down, only 14 years after its birth. The forced closure of the school resulted in a vast number of artworks and creative treasures never being completed, and what could’ve been design classics were left behind – lost to history.
In collaboration with the Bauhaus foundation and a team of typographers led by legendary type designer Erik Spiekermann we turned sparse typographical sketches from the Bauhaus archives into five complete typefaces and made them available in Adobe Typekit. Giving what was initiated by the Bauhaus masters almost a century ago new life in the hands of a new generation of designers.
Describe the strategy
Target audience
1. Creative Professionals (Enterprise, SMB or Freelance)
Target media
1. Creative Industry Media (i.e. Dezeen)
2. Art World Media (i.e. Culture Trip)
PR planning
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 Typekit 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 Typekit.
Describe the execution
The unique typefaces were made available for download in Adobe Typekit, free for all Adobe Creative Cloud- and Typekit users. In a global campaign, spanning from June 15 – August 31, 2018, the typefaces and the story about the project were spread globally through PR, social media, influencer programs and Adobe’s own channels (Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).
To create awareness the campaign was launched by identifying and targeting key journalists and influencers in creative media all over the world (locally and globally) with press kits.
To create engagement within the target audience we arranged a series of five competitions on Instagram and Behance with the challenge to design in Adobe’s apps using the fonts and Adobe Typekit.
Additionally, we inspired our target audience with online seminars on, live events, a campaign video, Youtube tutorials and a documentary about the project, the history of Bauhaus and the importance of typography.
List the results
Tier 1:
Target: 25 articles in relevant target media.
Result: 162 articles in relevant target media. Exceeding target by 548%.
(Gross reach estimation 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.)
Tier 3:
Primary KPI
Target: 10 000 font downloads.
Result: 407 000 font downloads. Exceeding target by 3970%.
Secondary KPI
Target: 500 competition submissions
Result: over 2000 competition submissions . Exceeding target by 305%.
Additional Results
15 600 organic social posts generating 147 million potential impressions
1.3 million social media engagements (likes & comments)
297 000 unique visitors on campaign site