Today, a new type label hits the scene: Fontwerk.
The Berlin-based Ivo Gabrowitsch, an alum of FontShop and Monotype, started the company in 2018. They’re launching with 10 typefaces from nine designers (encompassing 105 fonts), a simple licensing model, an ordering system touted as one of the fastest around, and a focus on providing their typeface contributors with the fairest agreements.
“Our motivation is simply the love of good design,” they write. “Outstanding type is our contribution to that.”
The crew is made up of many faces familiar from FontShop—“the place where typographic trends were set, simple license models devised, experimental limits explored and the largest library of contemporary typefaces emerged”—and features Andreas Frohloff in the role of type director.
If the name “Fontwerk” also sounds familiar, you probably recognize it from Gabrowitsch’s type and design blog. (Gabrowitsch grew up near a large mill—or Walzwerk—and regards type design as an arduous but intellectual and delicate craft, and the name pays tribute to the factory and that concept.)
A major focus of the new publisher is also font engineering (mastering, production and variable type work) and custom typeface design, including language extensions. Fontwerk also offers logo design services and calligraphy workshops.
Here’s a look at the first wave of typefaces in action.
