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How can a typeface improve the world? Even before he had drawn the first letter, Christoph Koeberlin wanted to answer this question. He wanted to prove that designers can positively influence the environment.
One way that he is doing this is by donating 25% of his income from Pangea to the preservation of the rainforest and to large-scale reforestation projects involving the local population (Trees for the Future, The Green Belt Movement, Fairventures Worldwide). With every font license you purchase, you are helping to preserve one of the most important factors in slowing down climate change. It’s just a bit of a shame that the name Futura had already been taken by another geometric sans serif typeface, as it would have been more appropriate here.
For Christoph, the connection and connotation of the name was of great importance. Just like the primeval continent that the typeface is named after, Pangea is a symbol of not only the big (common) picture but of global cooperation. While Gergő Kókai from Hungary supported him in the design of the upright characters, he brought Tanya George from India and the Japan-based Gabriel Richter on board to work on the italics. He consulted with Irene Vlachou from Greece, Ilya Ruderman from Russia, Donny Truong from the USA and Paul Hanslow from Australia to ensure the quality of the Greek, Cyrillic, Vietnamese and African Latin characters. The spacing and the kerning of the font would not have been possible without Igino Marini from Italy and his superior iKern technology.
Broad foreign language support is almost obligatory with such an omnicultural approach. From the beginning, European Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and Vietnamese language support have been included in Pangea as standard. The first language extension was Pangea Afrikan which supports all Latin-based African languages and some indigenous languages of North America and it was released a corresponding (subset) for free in the Standard License towards the end of 2021!
Thanks to the Lebanese Type Designer Azza Alameddine, who lives in Spain, and the Israeli designers, Yanek Iontef and Daniel Grumer, Arabic and Hebrew followed just one year later. All existing users can download the expanded fonts free of charge from their Fontwerk account. The price remains the same. But that’s not all: more support for other languages will follow soon.
It’s important to mention that the typeface works remarkably well due to its refined space saving – it is more condensed than a normal geometric sans. Indeed, this could even be sold as a further environmentally friendly and eco-conscious feature as it not only saves paper but screen capacity, but maybe that would be too much of a good thing. This characteristic is actually the result of the smart design decisions that Christoph Koeberlin made during the five years he spent working on Pangea. Another outstanding trait is the consequence between the compactness and closeness, while diagonal terminals and round dots make for a friendly appearance. He successfully manages the balancing act between narrow grotesque typefaces and geometric ones. This approach is also demonstrated in the rather large x-height as well as the barely open forms, but also in the unusual ‘spectacle-g’, double-story a and l with foot. The more common single-story ‘g’ and ‘a’ as well as the straight ‘l’ are, of course, accessible as OpenType alternatives.
The second member of the family, Pangea Text, is built upon the same foundations but aims to improve legibility. With longer ascenders and descenders, more open forms, slight ink traps and more generous spacing, this variant is great for use in extensive texts and is particularly good for use in small sizes as well as on screens. Not only do both families complement and harmonize with each other, but the decision to work with optical sizes is what makes the core family’s uncompromising nature and attractive appearance possible in the first place.
Four years since its debut in summer 2024, the Latin, Cyrillic and Greek parts of the type system were supplemented with narrower weights. Thanks to the addition of SemiCondensed, Condensed and XCondensed, the stylistic range has now quadrupled. This makes Pangea an even more powerful tool, particularly in editorial, responsive, branding and packaging contexts.
Christoph Koeberlin is not only a designer of highly original typefaces (he also co-designed FF Mark and created Fabrikat), he is also one of the world’s most sought after Font Engineers. As you would expect from such an expert, the entire superfamily comes with a variable font version. This version allows a smooth and infinite adjustment from Light to Bold weights, from Normal to XCondensed widths, as well as the angle of the slope and seamless switching between optical sizes (ascenders and descenders, the characters’ openness, spacing and inktraps). The possibilities are truly endless! As with all other Fontwerk fonts, the Pangea variable versions are included in the super family package at no additional cost and can be tested free of charge as subsetted Trial Fonts.
Saving the world through one typeface at a time — it’s worth a try.
Further Information
Want to find out about Christoph Koeberlin’s thoughts behind Pangea? Head to his website.
