West and Pangea recognized in JBA22

We were over the moon to hear that two of our lovely Fontwerk fonts have been recognized in this year’s Joseph Binder Awards. Daniel Perraudin’s West took Bronze in the Type Design category and Christoph Koeberlin’s Pangea was awarded a Distinction in the same category.

Launched in 1996 by designaustria, the Joseph Binder Award is an international competition with a focus on excellence in graphic design and illustration. Joseph Binder was one of Austria’s most well-renowned graphic designers and illustrators, who had an illustrious career in the US as well and went on to revolutionize visual design there. With over 900 entries from 32 countries we were so delighted to see two of our Fontwerk family taking home an accolade.

At Ordinary Lifee you can not only gain an extra hour but you can also get fantastic cake and coffee too. In our latest in use case for the glorious McQueen, the founders of the South Korean café, Ordinary Lifee wanted to give their guests a ‘13th hour’ twice a day. The Art Director Kwangmyung Lim who designed the visual identity for the cafe, explained that the cafe was intended to be a space where you can fit cake and coffee into your normal everyday life. “So the idea of time runs across the entire corporate design.”

We all know that the best timekeepers are often Swiss-made. So it was only natural that Kwangmyung Lim chose McQueen Display as the house font for Ordinary Lifee. McQueen is our very own, Swiss-made typeface that was developed by the Swiss Type Designer Loris Olivier, his wife Noheul Lee and Katja Schimmel.

There’s no shortage of gorgeous in-use cases of our very own sustainable and freshly decorated font, Pangea and the latest to catch our eye doesn’t miss a beat. Pangea plays a starring role on the cover of the newest release by music producer and DJ, AVIVX. The ‘Dark Temple EP’ is a ‘thick energetic house blanket’ by the talented queer DJ & producer from Kazakhstan, who now lives in Tbilisi.

Nils Vrijdag – a Graphic Designer based in Rotterdam – was tasked with coming up with the cover design and he explained his choice of font: “In Pangea Bold, I found the perfect partner for this job. Not only does it resemble the warm and uplifting music of the album, it’s also strong enough to serve as the visual backbone in an otherwise fairly clean and minimalist layout.” Striking and catchy, we love both the cover and this hypnotic and energetic tune.

For the owners of KARAK, a self-confident and stand alone font was needed when it came to designing their visual identity. One that reflected the spirit and beauty of their one-of-a-kind ornamental tiles which are created using the traditional Japanese firing technique called Raku in their workshop in Austria. Each individually handcrafted tile is a labor of love and relies upon the alchemy and magic of the firing process to create unique patterns. When redesigning their website, they needed something that paid homage to their unique craft and design process and our very own Nikolai filled the bill perfectly.

As with KARAK’s beautiful tiles, Franziska Weitgruber’s idea with Nikolai was to reinterpret a historical design tradition. The rebelliously constructed letters and striking tone, perfectly reflect KARAK’s brand identity and add a special flair to their website. We were delighted to see that KARAK recently won Silver in the Joseph Binder Awards (JBA) 2022 awards in the Screen Design category.