Pangea Afrikan - Fontwerk

Pangea Aƒriƙan

Fresh free fonts for 430 million

Crossing continents and connecting cultures: on its mission to expand typographic diversity across the globe, our popular geometric sans’ next stop is Africa. Designed by Christoph Koeberlin. Published as part of a superfamily along with Pangea Afrikan Text™.

Rag

Gidi gidi bụ ugwu eze. (Unity is strength. Igbo proverb)

Unless otherwise stated, the images used are subject to Unsplash licenses.

It’s only been a year and a half since Pangea was first released but thanks to the ongoing donation of a quarter of all designer royalties, over 75,000 trees have been planted and at least 2,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide has been offset. Meanwhile, Pangea also continues to pursue its second major goal: connecting cultures and continents. One way in which it does this is by promoting underrepresented languages.

From the outset, Pangea included European Latin, Greek, Extended Cyrillic (including overlooked languages such as Kyrgyz or Bashkir) and Vietnamese as well as characters for the transcription of Arabic and Sanskrit. The next language extension milestones planned are Hebrew and Arabic (Persian, Urdu, Dari as well as Pashto).

Designer Christoph Koeberlin sees Pangea as an inclusive typeface family. Its name refers to his approach of considering different cultures and continents as part of a common whole. His continuous language extensions challenge Western conventions, as more often than not successful typefaces usually only represent the alphabets of Europe and America. Pangea Afrikan marks an important milestone in this respect: it adds Latin African to its language toolbox. Providing support for languages including Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Lingala, Mende, and Umbundu, as well as some indigenous North American languages such as Lushootseed and Navajo–the languages of over 430 million people.

Fontwerk’s mission is to make typography affordable and accessible to all. We don’t want to make extensive language support like Cyrillic, Greek or Arabic an expensive additional barrier or obstacle to great typography. With this comprehensive update, we even go one big step further based on Christoph’s suggestion: Pangea Afrikan is permanently free of charge and included in the Standard License! We hope that brands, agencies and individual designers will be able to benefit from this.

Stylistically, the extension remains true to the tried and tested Pangea formula: the space-saving compactness of the narrow typefaces of the mid-20th Century is transferred to a straightforward, geometric sans serif. That means a stately x-height, ascenders that correspond to the capital letters, and letters that are hardly open. The font owes its finely balanced lightness to diagonal ends and round dots. With two optical sizes, Pangea Afrikan and Pangea Afrikan Text, something that is rather rare in the geometric genre, users get enormous flexibility and design consequence.

This update does not however, mean the end of the language extension. Together with local designers, additional Non-Latin alphabets such as N’Ko or Geʽez are in the works. These will also be available to existing and future customers at no cost. Until then, however, a little patience is required and it is important to trust the Tanzanian proverb ‘Haraka Haraka haina baraka’ (Hurry hurry has no blessings).

In his blog, Christoph describes the genesis of this project in more detail and makes suggestions for a Latin character set that goes beyond the borders of Europe and the Americas.

#65

Uppercase

Lowercase

Latin Accents

Ậ

Ạ

Ḍ

Ḏ

Ệ

Ẹ

Ẽ

Ḫ

Ḩ

Ḥ

Ị

Ḳ

Ḷ

Ḹ

Ḻ

Ṁ

Ṃ

Ṅ

Ṇ

Ṉ

Ộ

Ọ

Ṙ

Ṛ

Ṝ

Ṟ

Ṣ

Ṭ

Ṯ

Ụ

Ẃ

Ẅ

Ẉ

Ẁ

Ỵ

Ỳ

Ỹ

Ẓ

Ẕ

ậ

ạ

ḍ

ḏ

ệ

ẹ

ẽ

ḫ

ḩ

ḥ

ị

ḳ

ḷ

ḹ

ḻ

ṁ

ṃ

ṅ

ṇ

ṉ

ộ

ọ

ṙ

ṛ

ṝ

ṟ

ṣ

ṭ

ṯ

ụ

ẃ

ẅ

ẉ

ẁ

ỵ

ỳ

ỹ

ẓ

ẕ

Numerals & Currency Symbols

€

฿

₿

₵

₡

₫

₲

₴

₭

₺

₼

₦

₱

₽

₹

₪

₸

₮

₩

Punctuation

;

…

•

〃

‽

⸘

‣

⸸

(

)

{

}

[

]

–

—

‒

―

‐

‑

‚

„

“

”

‘

’

‹

›

‴

⟨

⟩

Mathematical Signs & Symbols

∙

≅

⋅

≙

−

≠

≥

≤

≈

∞

∅

∫

Ω

∆

∏

∑

√

∂

‰

Arrows & Shapes

↑

↗

→

↘

↓

↙

←

↖

●

○

◊

■

□

▲

▼

△

▽

▴

▸

▾

◂

Ligatures

k̕

fft

Greek

Christoph Koeberlin

Design Contributions

Gabriel Richter (Italics)
Paul Hanslow (Consultancy)

Mastering, Production

Christoph Koeberlin
Igino Marini (Spacing/Kerning)

Marketing

Christoph Koeberlin (Naming)
Fungi Dube (Graphic Design, Imagery)
Ivo Gabrowitsch (Copywriting, Specimen)
Lucy Beckley (English Translation)

Design Period

2019–2021

Release Date

December 20, 2021; Latest update August 27, 2022 (Variable Fonts)

Recommended Use

Advertising & Packaging
Editorial & Publishing
Logo, Branding & CI
Poster & Billboards
Responsive Designs

Formats

static: OTF, WOFF2; variable: TTF, WOFF2
Further formats available on request

Licenses

TRIAL Free Test license
STANDARD Combined Print, Web, App and eBook license
EXTENDED Larger volume + Broadcasting
Further types of license available on request

Modifications & Extensions

Available on request

Variable Fonts

Included in the Superfamily package at no extra cost.

8 axes: weights, extenders, openness of shapes, spacing, italic, ink traps, alternates

Web file size: 159 KB (WOFF2)

Trademarks

Pangea Afrikan™ is a trademark of Fontwerk GmbH

Download PDF

Fresh free fonts for 430 million

Story

Further Information

Glyphs

Uppercase

Lowercase

Latin Accents

Numerals & Currency Symbols

Punctuation

Mathematical Signs & Symbols

Arrows & Shapes

Ligatures

Greek

Languages

Fresh free fonts for 430 million

Story

Further Information

Glyphs

Uppercase

Lowercase

Latin Accents

Numerals & Currency Symbols

Punctuation

Mathematical Signs & Symbols

Arrows & Shapes

Ligatures

Greek

Languages

Related Typefaces

Pairing Suggestions