Inside The WIP Fonts Folder, The Designers Foundry’s home for beta type

Daniel McQueen founded The Designers Foundry in 2012, back when it was called Ten Dollar Fonts and was still finding its voice through a steady stream of experimental typefaces. More than a decade on, TDF has grown into a foundry known for polished families licensed by Apple, Disney and more. The WIP Fonts Folder is McQueen’s way of reclaiming some of that early looseness: a corner of the TDF website built to look and behave like a classic Mac OS desktop, where in-development and early-release fonts live at gentler pricing. It’s stocked with typefaces from designers across Europe, Asia and New Zealand, and began years earlier as a Habbo-style virtual office before McQueen zoomed all the way in on the desktop itself. In our conversation, he talks through the pull of side-quest passion projects and releasing a typeface before it’s finished. TBI: Hey Daniel, how’s life over in New Zealand? DM: Kia ora Elliott! Pretty good. Winter’s sunk its teeth in here, but that’s all good by me. I’m locked in the office with a list a mile long. Custom typefaces on the go, some exciting retail releases dropping soon, and a bunch of other projects keeping me busy during these short, chilly days.