Revisiting An Incredible True Story, Part II

Update. Last week more details were released about the $2 trillion economic relief plan and how it will help millions of American small businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The help is in cash grants, low-interest loans (loan payments delayed by six months), and payments to offset eight weeks of payroll costs for businesses that retain workers or rehire those they have laid off.

All of you have fewer than 500 workers, so make sure you check out these two programs that also include sole proprietorships, independent contractors, and freelancers. The government has set-up a Paycheck Protection Program and expanded the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. Please read the details of each program and how they work in this NYTimes article. Also, COVID-10 pandemic stay-at-home orders continue through May 4, 2020.

Today’s podcast. Author and font designer, Carolyn Porter shares part two of her two-fold journey. The innocently started project that became her obsession to find the Frenchman behind the 1944 WWII letters and creating a new award-winning font, P22 Marcel Font. She became an unlikely memoir author of Marcel’s Letters. The book is in its third printing. DOWNLOAD

Carolyn’s journey is what all entrepreneurs have in common. The learning, momentum, time, resources, and the self-funding it takes to release your innovations into the world. She had to reconstruct her journey in creating P22 Marcel Font while finding Marcel.

Tenacity and perseverance. When one door closed, she found another. The desire and momentum to reach a goal, in this case, was unstoppable. She never once gave up, even though she had wanted to stop chasing after elusive answers. She took needed breaks. She had to find out if Marcel returned to his wife and his children. I felt like I was on the journey with her which is why I reached a point where I was obsessed with absorbing every word and detail to its end.

Getting Published. Carolyn describes the process she went through as a first-time author to get her book published. She says the book found her and she felt the responsibility of resurrecting Marcel’s history as a civilian forced laborer in 1943. The story was bigger than her; bigger than the font. She was bringing to life a forgotten part of history.

Because she wasn’t planning to write a book, she scoured emails, receipts, fed ex delivery slips, and even tracked down a chef to get the exact dish she ordered at a restaurant, making sure every detail was accurate. Two different French translators helped in the project. Her journey led her to a genealogist to find Marcel’s family members. How did she put everything together?

She found information from the German car company, Daimler AG, formerly known as Daimler-Benz at that time. Marcel was forced to make tanks for the Hitler regime. She learned of how complicit the Vichy French government was in forcing citizens to work at Daimler-Benz not only building these tanks but living in concentration camps, separated from their loved ones. They were puppets to the Germans.

Legal issues cropped up in getting published. The font and book had separate legal issues. What were they? How long did it take to resolve the legal issues before the book was published? Listen to continue learning about Carolyn’s Incredible Story, Part II.

Carolyn Porter. Graphic designer. Creative thinker. Art director. Typography lover. Daily dog walker. Detail freak. Designer of the typeface P22 Marcel Script and author of Marcel’s Letters. In 2014, Carolyn released her first typeface, P22 Marcel Script, which is based on the handwritten letters of Marcel Heuzé, a Frenchman conscripted to work in a German labor camp during the depths of World War II.

Episode ­221 Revisiting An Incredible True Story, Part II   Porter Folio Inc.