Finding the right solution in a world of possibilities can be a daunting task. With long-time experience in complex design projects, we are here to support you in all aspects of type design and typography.
We create fonts and logotypes, work with type foundries and toolmakers, provide font engineering, and develop custom typographic solutions for brands and individuals. In our projects and collaborations, we enjoy being challenged with problems that require research and creative thinking. At the same time, we keep a constant focus on consistency, precision, and technical reliability, in order to ensure that the results we deliver serve the purposes of our clients in a meaningful and sustainable way.
Our Services
The field of type and typography provides a great variety of interesting problems and tasks. Accordingly, there is no single project that would reflect the entire range of the services we offer. Most of our projects involve design and technology to a similar degree, and we cherish both sides of our profession. To learn more about our services and our areas of expertise, please take a look at the following overview. Should you have any additional questions concerning our work, please do not hesitate to get in contact.
On modern computer systems, text formatting is as easy as highlighting a portion of text, selecting a font style from a dropdown menu, making adjustments to parameters like font size or line height, and choosing an option for ligature substitutions or figure styles.
What is perceived as a fairly straightforward process by the user depends on a successful interpretation of the data tables in the underlying font file that is used to turn the selected text into a readable sequence of glyphs. In order to ensure that these tables are set up correctly, type designers rely on the expertise of font engineers.
In our collaborations with type designers, we provide font engineering services throughout the entire design and production process. As specialists for technical quality and standard compliance, we assess the consistency of glyph encodings, vector data, metrics, and kerning. We help designers set up complex interpolation workflows, develop custom tools for rapid prototyping, and provide scripts that automate tedious repetitive tasks.
For fonts with extensive script and language support, we develop script-specific systems of mark attachment and set up glyph substitution and positioning tables as required for correct text shaping. Most of the fonts we produce include OpenType features that enhance their typographic versatility. To ensure crisp and clear text rendering on low-resolution output devices, we supplement glyph vector data with PostScript hints or TrueType instructions. Manual TrueType hinting belongs to the core areas of our expertise.
Following the release of a typeface, we offer implementation support for all environments where the typeface is used. In our projects for the automotive sector, we have worked with developers of highly customized text rendering engines and have provided font-related quality assurance for large corpora of user interface text. In our work for brand agencies, we have provided tools for experimentation with variable fonts that lead to logo and wordmark designs. You will find a reliable partner in us for any font engineering task you might have.
Custom type solutions range from logo and wordmark design, corporate lettering, and comparably limited use cases to complex corporate type systems that offer extended script and language support, include a large number of individual styles, and are used in a wide range of communication contexts.
Beyond all differences in purpose and scope, there is an essential feature of custom type that cannot be fully achieved by fonts produced for the retail market. Custom typefaces are unique. They can give their users a distinctive voice that is clearly recognisable wherever type is used to convey a message. No wonder that custom type is considered a key visual element in building brand identities. Interacting with logo, color, and imagery, a custom typeface offers the target audience a direct, intuitive understanding of what a brand is all about.
Together with our partners, we have not only worked on building complex corporate type systems for international companies like Swisslog, Alphabet Mobility or BMW, but also completed smaller type design and brand development projects for non-profits and businesses that serve their communities on a local level.
Regardless of the project scale, our task has always been the same: to create a distinctive typographic solution that reflects the identity of the brand under consideration and resonates with the core values and beliefs of the client who put their trust in us. So whether you are planning a refresh of your brand typography, need an extension of an existing type system or are just looking for the perfect logo that makes your brand shine, we will be happy to work with you.
We love type, and we enjoy making use of type on screen and in print. From web sites to scientific studies, from artist books to user manuals – there is no kind of publication that does not warrant fine typography. With an intimate knowledge of typographic traditions and a keen attention to detail, we create digital and printed publications that are tailored to their target audience and make for engaging reading experiences.
Apart from our own typography projects, we are blessed with a network of experienced communication designers, copy editors, and developers that allows us to handle graphic design projects of almost any scale. We believe in collaboration and enjoy working together with professionals of all related fields. Let us know if we can support you with a publication project.
With hundreds of new typefaces being released every month, it has become increasingly difficult to keep up with the latest trends in type design. No doubt, the sheer number of fonts that are available from type foundries and open-source sites can be discouraging when you are trying to find the perfect typeface for a particular project. And especially with fonts that are free to use and modify, it is not always easy to assess whether they have the quality, the glyph set, and the features required for the intended purpose.
Should you find yourself struggling with such questions, we are here to help. We help you identify your needs, research font libraries, compare licensing options, connect with type foundries, and make informed recommendations tailored to your specific requirements. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any type-related questions you may have. In addition to font research, we also offer workshops in our fields of expertise to students and colleagues.