I set that question aside a long time ago, when I first began experimenting with designing Thai Loop letterforms (Traditional Thai characters are distinguished by small circular loops and are primarily used in school textbooks, the publishing industry, and longer texts). At first, the work felt as if I was dealing with an ampersand in every single letter. From a purely economical perspective, the enormous amount of time and training that Thai type designers invest into the script can rarely be justified.

However, if you measure its value by what it preserves and passes on, then the answer looks very different. If it means that you can prevent historical letterforms from being lost amid technological change and deepen our understanding of the Thai script with every new project… In that case, the answer is always a resounding “Yes!”

Thai type never gets boring. There’s always something to learn, both creatively and technically. Having been born and raised in Bangkok, I have spent the last eight years intensively engaged with our script. In that time, my appreciation for its diversity has steadily grown over time. Every single stylistic variation offers new insights.

As for the historical foundations, however, I’m happy to leave that to the experts: “History of Thai Typography” by Pracha Suveeranont, published by Typotheque, remains to this day, the most comprehensive documentation of the history of Thai typography and print culture. In what follows, I will provide a brief overview and then focus on a few milestones in this history.

The Thai script descends from the family of Brāhmī scripts of India, its most direct predecessor is Old Khmer[^1]. Its formal origin dates back to 1283 and it is traditionally attributed to King Ramkhamhaeng of the Kingdom of Sukhothai. He is said to have adapted the writing system of Old Khmer to Thai phonology. The inscription on which this attribution is based is, however, the subject of scholarly debate[^2].

We read left to right, as in Latin. Our glyph inventory is far smaller than that of many Indic relatives, since Thai abandoned conjunct consonant stacking, yet the system remains complex[^3].

Structurally, the Thai script works fundamentally differently from Western alphabets. Strictly speaking, it isn’t an alphabet at all but an Abugida. At the centre of each syllable sits a consonant sign, which is combined with vowels and other marks. Thai has 44 consonant letters, divided into three classes. In addition to that, there are vowel signs and tone marks. Unlike in Latin, however, these do not simply line up one after another along a baseline. Vowels can stand before, after, above or below a consonant; some vowels even consist of several signs that quite literally enclose a consonant. Thai has no upper- and lowercase letters.

Tones are part of the writing system as well. Thai distinguishes five spoken tones, yet there is not simply one corresponding sign for each tone. Four diacritical tone marks interact with the class of the given consonant, the length of the vowel and the structure of the syllable.

A tone mark is placed above its consonant and, where necessary, above a vowel sign already sitting there. A single base character can thus be combined with elements to its left, right, above and below. The horizontal sequence we can observe in Latin type becomes a two-dimensional construction. Precisely this fact is a particular challenge for type designers.

In a Latin typeface, letters, diacritics, spacing, and proportions also have to be coordinated with one another. In Thai, however, such combinations are part of the everyday core of the writing system. Vowel signs and tone marks must remain unambiguously assignable across very different sequences of characters, must not collide with each other or with the consonants, and must stay legible even at small sizes.

When a typeface is extended from Extra Condensed to Extra Wide, the available space becomes dramatically limited. We will encounter this problem again later with Neue DIN Thai.

Globally, Thai is recognized in two primary styles: Looped and Loopless.

In Thailand, we learn to read and write with looped letterforms. Growing up, Loop was the script of our schoolbooks: formal, familiar, and foundational. Yet outside the classroom, Loopless was everywhere, in advertisements, signage, and product packaging.

To western eyes, it can seem puzzling that Thai readers live with two styles at once. But the division follows its own logic. For long-form reading, especially body text in books, Loop remains the default, while Loopless is preferred for websites, short texts, advertising, and user interfaces.

Recent research by Typotheque[^4] largely confirms this pattern and adds an age dimension. Looped text is strongly recommended for paragraph reading, with its readability advantage holding across all age groups, yet younger readers discern Loopless more easily at small sizes. The authors suggest this reflects Thailand’s typographic landscape, which has been saturated with Loopless since its popularization in the 1990s. In other words, this exposure has trained people’s eyes.

What makes Thai script particularly complex, for readers and type designers alike, is that this Loop/Loopless distinction sits on top of an already intricate system.

Since Thai has adopted words from Pali and Sanskrit, multiple letters can represent the same sound. Readers simply have to learn which one is used in a particular word. Added to this are character forms that differ only in small details: the loop direction, a small curve, a final stroke. The potential for confusion is correspondingly high.

Towards the end of the 20th century, Thai typeface design underwent a phase of significant simplification, during which many distinctive features were abandoned in favor of a minimalist aesthetic. This trend was particularly pronounced during the era of dry-transfer typefaces.

Today, the trend is moving back in the opposite direction. Details are returning and familiar forms are being revived for Thai readers without sacrificing the flexibility that has always characterized the writing system.

This balance between familiarity and flexibility runs like a common thread through the design projects described below, Pangea Thai and Neue DIN Thai.

Pangea by Christoph Koeberlin is a sans serif typeface that falls somewhere between a narrow grotesque and a geometric sans. Overall, it is narrower and thus more space-efficient than a classic geometric sans serif, yet it retains a friendly character through its diagonal terminals and round dots. These qualities, the compactness, the large x-height, and the restrained openness, set the framework that the Thai extension had to respond to.

Designing Thai for Pangea meant designing two styles in one typeface: Looped for Pangea Text and Loopless for Pangea (Display). The process began with the Text variant, since body text is the more conservative and therefore more challenging territory, while display allows greater flexibility. Elements that could be shared across both styles were only selected at the very end.

Pangea Text is designed for comfortable reading at small sizes. For the Looped Thai, I chose letterforms with rounded rectangular bottoms, a design with which Thai readers are deeply familiar with.

They can be found in fonts such as Browallia (designed by: Unity Progress), which became established during the Windows era; in Sarabun (Design: Suppakit Chalermlarp), the standard typeface of Thai government documents; and in Thonburi, the default Thai system font on Apple devices.

To this day, these typefaces shape the image that Thai readers associate with body text in their everyday lives.

The Pangea Thai project subtly blends traditional and modern forms. Pangea Text Thai seeks to strike a balance between the two: the top of the letters appear more modern, while characters with descenders retain more conservative forms.

This balance also allows the design to keep a close relationship with the loopless style. The goal is to reduce visual clutter as much as possible while ensuring high legibility even in bold weights and small sizes.

When it comes to the proportion and typeface design, it’s about striking a balance with the Latin script. Even minor details of the Latin forms, such as the design of the terminals, have their counterparts in Thai. In Pangea Text, the forms are designed to be slightly more open.

In addition to proportions and overall texture, the characteristic cut-off t of Pangea was also carried over into the Thai versions, in both the Looped and Loopless versions. The angle of their terminals is less steep than in the Latin glyph, so that Thai readers do not find these characters unfamiliar.

Finally, it should be noted that Pangea is an eco-friendly typeface family. 25% of all designer royalties from every purchase is donated to rainforest preservation and to reforestation projects involving local populations (Trees for the Future, The Green Belt Movement and Fairventures Worldwide)[^5].

So, now that Pangea speaks Thai, please take it out into the world. I’m curious to see where the journey leads to.

Try Pangea Thai for free

Where Pangea asked for subtlety and finesse, Neue DIN asked for endurance: the same script, stretched across widths from XXCondensed to XXWide. Such challenges always force a new, creative solution.

There is always the question of whether Thai can check every box that Latin does in terms of width and weight. The honest answer is that it does not have to. Yet looking back at historical products and printed materials tells a different story: packaging, advertisements, movie posters, and other printed materials from earlier eras displayed remarkable typographic diversity.

Thai script has always shown high flexibility and adaptability, a quality that likely grew out of a long multicultural trading history, with the West as well as with other Eastern cultures. Its letterforms have taken on a wide variety of designs, embracing foreign influences and the style trends of each era. That openness reached beyond trade, as new media found their way to Siam early as well.

From around 1897 onwards, foreign travelling cinema troupes regularly visited Bangkok, at least two to three per year, screening films for the public. This gradually familiarized Siamese audiences with the new entertainment medium, which they came to call “nang farang” (foreign/Western pictures)[^6].

With the cinema posters and with the posters came the typeface designers. The late 1950s and early 1960s in particular were brimming with a spirit of experimentation. Width and line thickness were the least significant variables. Back then, the designers had much more to play with.

Over the years, I have continued the research I began in 2019 (see the YouTube video of my presentation at ATypI 2019 in Tokyo) and it consistently confirms the same impression. The technological limitations of later eras have curtailed much of the flexibility that Thai letterforms possessed at that time. At the same time, it is precisely these limitations that have shaped the reading habits that society lives with today.

OpenType features now offer the possibility of gradually regaining some of this flexibility or at least make the once-impossible now possible. Neue DIN Thai is a good example of this, especially in the XXCondensed styles. Narrow typefaces have always been a challenge for Thai because the complex internal shapes of Thai glyphs resist being significantly narrowed. So when it came to developing the Thai version of Neue DIN, which in itself is a classic and rigorously structured typeface that has survived through history, the development of Neue DIN Thai was just as demanding as it was exciting.

Fontwerk’s Neue DIN has been expanded by Andreas Frohloff, Hendrik Weber, and Olli Meier to accommodate today’s digital communication requirements, covering an enormous range of stroke weights and widths. The inner shapes posed a particular challenge. Another challenge was making the Thai tone marks function properly under all these conditions, especially in XXCondensed.

Working alongside Andreas Frohloff made the whole project a privilege and educational experience. His critical eye guided every stage and the reverse-angle italics or Retalic Thai were drawn by him. His comments and feedback came directly, right down to jumping on a video call to talk things through. Even in retirement, he brings decades of experience and shares it generously. There is a great deal to learn from a designer like him and this project proved it many times.

In Thai, diacritics are placed both above and below consonants. The position of the tone marks directly affects readability for native speakers. Since tone marks can be combined with all consonants, designers must always take into account how these two groups of characters are combined and function together. The positioning of tone marks in Neue DIN Thai closely follows the positioning of accents in the Latin Neue DIN.

But what happens with tone marks on letters with ascender? Normally, a second set of tone marks is drawn for such characters, known as the Narrow set (.narrow). Narrow means exactly what the name suggests: they are narrower than the default. In Neue DIN Thai, however, especially in the XXCondensed, the Narrow set alone is not enough, since both the spacing between letters and the letter proportions themselves are extremely tight.

Squeezing a tone mark in beside an ascender risks a crash with the tone mark on the previous letter, and the mark itself loses legibility in that position, as seen in Sketch B. To remain legible, one solution is a short-ascender version of Po-pla (ป) that pairs with the top tone mark. This allows the tone mark to move further inward while still remaining unobstructed.

Some letters, like the alternates in these sketches, never made it into the final typeface as they proved impractical in use. But the idea of the shortened ascender idea remained.

In the Latin alphabet, there are some letters with very similar shapes, such as n and h, which differ only in the height of their ascenders. Thai has a comparable pair: Po-pla (ป) and Bo-baimai (บ). If the ascender of Po-pla is shortened too much, the two characters begin to resemble each other.

In practice, it is not feasible to reduce the ascender to a height that falls between the consonant body and the tone mark. This is because the space between the top of the consonant body and the tone mark above it is too narrow to maintain a clearly recognizable distinction between the two characters. Please see the exploration image below.

Therefore, the decision was made to leave the tone marks of the first level at their original height, rather than shifting them upward. If they were raised, the line spacing would have to be increased too much; moreover, characters set too high quickly give the impression that they are floating detached above their base character. So we did not change the tone mark, but fixed Po-pla instead.

For XXCondensed, the best solution ultimately turned out to be deliberately allowing the collision. So, the ascender and the tone mark are permitted to touch. This contact even serves a purpose. It makes it clear that this is a character with an ascender and visually explains why the two forms overlap. As soon as a wider character width provides sufficient space, the Narrow Set is used again. However, this solution applies only to tone marks that can collide with elements above them.

In the illustration “Risk of Collision,” the Po-pla (ป) in the middle word (เป็น) carries the tone mark Mai-taikhu ( ็), which shortens the vowel. In this case, Mai-taikhu is an integral part of the vowel combination (เ- ็), which is the shortened form of the vowel เ-ะ (Sara-e) when followed by a final consonant (น is the final consonant in this example). In this combination, the first part of the vowel, Sara-e (เ), is always written on the baseline, to the left of the main consonant (Po-pla in this case). Since it is itself a vowel, no tone mark is placed above it. As a result, the space above Po-pla on this side (the left side) remains clear (shown in blue). No tone mark belonging to an adjacent letter can come too close to it in this area. This means that Po-pla can retain its original, unmodified shape.

The situation is different for the words on the left and right (see image above). There, a tone mark is located above Po-pla, while at the same time, the character before it has a tall stroke or another element at the same height. Po-pla must therefore switch to its alternative form with a shorter height to make room.

This is different from patterns like เตาปูปั้น or เตานี้ปึก (see image above), where a tone mark above Po-pla sits close to another tall stroke or mark at the same height, forcing Po-pla to switch to its short-ascender alternate to make room. While in เป็น (in the middle), that crowding never arises, so Po-pla keeps its default, full-height form.

Thai has its roots in a flexible, playful writing culture. In the digital age, there is still much to learn and discover: How can the fluid quality of hand-drawn letters, along with their playfulness, be revived in the context of the OpenType era?

Every writing system bears the traces of what its earlier tools made possible. Neue DIN Thai is an attempt to restore some of the Thai script’s flexibility. But there is still much to discover. Additional features and alternative characters are waiting to be explored, and every new width and stroke weight raises its own questions.

XXCondensed represents just one end of the family, from there, the journey leads all the way to XXWide, through all stroke weights and widths, through Italic and Retalic (that is, the left-leaning cursive). Go and have a play and see what you can discover! Download the entire family free of charge as a trial font.

Try Neue DIN Thai for free

Looped plus Loopless

• Avenir Next, Linotype
• Graphik, Commercial Type
• Neue Frutiger Thai, Linotype
• Clarimo UD, Rosetta
• Diatype Global, ABC Dinamo
• November Thai (incl. Condensed and Compressed), Typotheque
• GT America, Grilli Type
• Pangea, Fontwerk

Agenda in the images set in Pangea Mono (yet to be released) by Christoph Koeberlin.

The text was proofread by Lucy Beckley and translated into German by Jürgen Siebert. AI tools were used to a limited extent in the process.

• [^1]: Michel Ferlus, “Origin of the Graph /b/ in the Thai Script,” in Southeast Asian Linguistic Studies in Honor of Vichin Panupong, ed. Arthur S. Abramson (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 1997), 79–82. [PDF]
• [^2]: Sommai Premchit, “Ramkhamhaeng or Ramkamhaeng?,” Journal of the Siam Society 76 (1988); the text addresses the transliteration and spelling of the name of the Sukhothai King Ramkhamhaeng, as well as a variant that omits the initial ”h”. [PDF]
• [^3]: Anthony Diller, “Thai and Lao Writing,” in The World’s Writing Systems, ed. Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Nantana Danvivathana, The Thai Writing System (Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1984). 
• [^4]: Héctor Mangas, “The Contemporary Effects of Loops: Studying the Implications of This Unique Feature of the Thai Script,” Typotheque, 15 February 2025.
• [^5]: Fontwerk, “Pangea,” 20 July 2020.
• [^6]: Dome Sukwong and Sawat Suwannapak, A Century of Thai Cinema (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001)

The people, the nature, the active community groups, and the small-to-medium-sized businesses. When he met the Berlin-based photographer Lars Wiedemann, the pair came up with an idea to portray the region beyond all clichés in a high-quality book. The deeper the two delved into the subject, the more people they met, the clearer it became. This book must be more than that. It should answer the question: How does a region with such deep historical roots manage the transition to modernity without abandoning its established identity?

“NeuHarz – The Future Grows from the Past” was published in May 2025 by the Hamburg-based Murmann Verlag. With a cloth bound hardcover, 324 pages, and numerous photographs, the central message of the book is: Only through a forward-looking connection to one’s homeland is a self-determined journey into the future possible. Christian Hille and Lars Wiedemann bring together the region’s trailblazers and use images and text to show what drives them. Their book marks the beginning of a larger movement: exhibitions and events will follow. In this way, NeuHarz could become a blueprint for other regions in transition.

Two styles of Neue DIN were used for the project: SemiWide Light and Wide Black. Two extremes of an exceptionally broad spectrum of type design. Neue DIN was developed by Andreas Frohloff, Hendrik Weber, and Olli Meier for Fontwerk and blends the demands of the digital world with a modern vision of German engineering. It is rooted in DIN 1451, the standard typeface that has helped shape Germany’s graphic identity for nearly a century, from street signs and highways to technical drawings. Neue DIN, however, is not a restoration but a consistent reinterpretation. With a “variable-first” approach that can be summarized in traditional terminology as follows: nine widths, nine stroke weights, and everything in between.

The team at the Hamburg-based design firm 2erpack Identity are responsible for the book’s design. They develop identities that challenge: not because they reflect the present, but because they anchor the envisioned future as a driver of growth for brands and companies. For NeuHarz, this is exactly the right approach. The book is about transformation rooted in tradition and requires a typeface that embodies both. Neue DIN does just that. Its functional, structured character carries the DNA of German engineering culture, that precision and reliability for which the Harz region, with its mining tradition and small-to-medium-sized businesses, is known for. At the same time, the combination of the sleek SemiWide Light and the bold Wide Black creates a visual dynamism that makes the project’s spirit of renewal palpable: down-to-earth and forward-looking at the same time.

Or, in the words of Behruz Tschaitschian from 2erpack Identity: “NeuHarz is a book about a region that isn’t reinventing itself, but rediscovering itself. We wanted to make this attitude tangible through typography as well. Neue DIN inherently embodies what the project exudes: clarity, reliability, an unmistakably German identity. A typeface that people know and that they get to know anew here. Just like the Harz region.”

The book received a special honor from the German Publishers and Booksellers Association and the Stiftung Buchkunst: it was one of 15 books selected as a nominee for “Germany’s Most Beautiful Regional Book.” With this award, the jury honors books that have a regional connection and stand out in particular for their design, binding, typography (!), and overall concept, thereby promising strong sales figures at local bookstores. We congratulate Lars, Christian, Murmann Publishers and 2erpack Identity and share in their joy at this recognition.

Try Neue DIN

But then comes a question from your boss, that all creatives fear, “What does this font actually cost?”. And suddenly, the tables turn and instead of the meeting being about a design discussion it turns into a debate about budgets. But there’s no reason to be nervous! It’s no surprise that your boss wants to know why they should spend money on a typeface, especially when there are free alternatives out there and they can’t see an immediate return on investment. 

So let’s dive deep into the top objections to type that Agencies, Design Teams and Marketing Departments have to contend with. Some arguments are valid, yet others are often due to misunderstandings. All are easy to refute when you start regarding a typeface as a building block that is key to good organizational infrastructure and foundations of any brand.

This is a very good question and the answer, ‘Our current font works just fine, why do we need change?’, on the surface, also seems very valid. In actual fact, a font change isn’t like an annual spring clean, that needs to happen every year. If your current typeface works well and stands the test of time, it should stay. 

Yet it should still be subject to the same stringent tests and scrutiny that any other building block of your brand faces. Whenever you’re looking at a new brand or a relaunch of any brand, you must consider the logo, colors, tone of voice and the visual language. Each element must be put to the ‘Time Test’, to see if it represents your brand not only today but also tomorrow. So it goes without saying that this also applies to your choice of font too. As independent studies have shown, typography shapes your brands personality.[1]  

Therefore, the crucial question to ask is “Does our current font still work?” and if the answer is “But we’ve always used it”, then it’s time to consider a change. In any redesign, keeping a typeface is as much a design decision as changing it.

To any critics or skeptics, you can say “Just because we’re doing a redesign, doesn’t mean that we have to change the typeface. But, whilst we’re looking at the whole brand, it makes sense to review the font choice at the same time and see if it still fits?”.

Without doubt, a Logo is important, but it has an enviably very simple job to do, it signals who the ‘Sender’ is, like a stamp or seal of approval. A great typeface, on the other hand, does so much more. It acts as a kind and consistent messenger, carrying all the brand’s messages, in a considered and consistent manner. Guiding the audience through products, apps, websites and all manner of touch points where a customer or your audience may encounter the brand. 

In short: a Logo signals the speaker while the typeface sets the tone. A Logo is like a signature while the font is the voice. While we encounter a signature occasionally, in every conversation, we hear the voice. 

So it makes no sense at all to pit the Logo against the Font. Both are brand assets with their own unique role to play. However, there’s one tangible and compelling advantage of a good typeface, it’s always used whenever the brand has something to say. 

So the next time you’re faced with a skeptic or critic, here’s what you have to say: “Our Logo shows who we are. Our typeface makes sure that we are heard and recognized, even when our Logo is out of sight.” or “Our Logo is our stamp while our typeface carries and delivers our message.”

Yes of course, you can absolutely change your brand’s fonts at any time (unlike any IT infrastructure!). But don’t forget that any corporate font is used across the company and they aren’t simply stored in a single folder on a single server. The fonts will be embedded in the websites and apps, they will appear in presentations, company templates, PDFs, on packaging, signage, adverts and reports and much more. The longer a font has been used, the deeper it’s left an imprint and penetrates a company’s infrastructure. 

Imagine you’re trying to change the location of a plug socket when building a house, when you’re still in the blueprint phase it’s really easy to do. But once you’ve built a house and moved in, it takes contractors time, money and a lot of patience to move it. 

So when it comes to fonts, there are some important questions that need to be considered. “Does the replacement work in all languages? Will all templates, websites and apps need to be switched and updated? Has everyone been told about the change? Will all the documents that have been in circulation for a long time?” So, instead of “We’ll do it later” being the cheaper option, it could actually work out to be a really expensive and an inefficient use of time. 

In the face of such criticism, here’s a great response: “Of course we can change our font later, but if we decide to do that today, we’ll just have to confront the problem later, costing more time and money and will have to tinker with it in thousands of places.”

Absolutely not! But people don’t buy cars because of the sound that their car door lock makes when it’s shut. Nevertheless car manufacturers will employ people to focus just on that sound. The sound reinforces the perception of quality and offers the customer a level of reassurance. It’s highly unlikely after a test drive that someone will say “The sound of the car locking sounded so convincing, I just have to buy this car!”. The sound and the reassurance it offers works at a subconscious level and once the car’s been bought, that special sound reinforces the conviction of the customer, day after day that “I made the right decision”. 

With fonts it’s a similar story. Customers don’t need to recognize or even know the name of a typeface for it to have an impact. Typography is one of the few signals that can subtly yet powerfully convey a brand’s identity. When the typeface feels out of place, it can weaken and lessen the impact of the brand. The tricky thing about type is that it works at a subconscious level, you can’t escape its influence and this is precisely its superpower.

So the question isn’t whether someone buys a product because of the typeface used, but rather: Should a company leave the impact of its most important communication medium to chance?

Here’s what you could say to management: “No, our customers don’t buy because of the typeface. But every time they read something from us, our typeface communicates with them. Whether we want it to or not.”

Otherwise translated as “What’s invisible or can’t be consciously perceived can’t have an effect!”. But again this is the magic of how our perception works. For example, in a restaurant, we usually won’t notice the lighting until it makes us feel uncomfortable. In a cinema, when watching a film, we won’t notice the music until it triggers an emotional response in us. And, very often, we can’t explain why a particular piece of packaging or branding looks ‘high quality’ to us. Despite not being able to ‘see’ any of these things, all these signals have an impact on our feelings.

In fact, with typefaces, you can actually measure this effect. In a series of perception studies[2] identical messages were displayed/set in different typefaces. The results were startling, a well-chosen typeface can increase a positive reaction by up to 13%, it can improve memorability by up to 10% and it can improve trust by 9%. None of the test subjects were expected to recognize the typefaces or understand typography. 

For brands this means: fonts don’t actually have to stand out to make a difference. They are always working in the background, every time someone encounters or reads something by a brand. 

Here’s what to tell your boss: “Our customers and audience don’t need to be able to ‘tell’ the difference but they do need to ‘feel’ it!”

In actual fact, there is a myriad of Open-Source-Fonts. Many are well-designed, technically flawless and are even suitable for international projects. But is FREE a selection criteria for a brand? Certainly no more so than ‘EXPENSIVE’. The key question brands should be asking is “Which typeface best suits my company’s needs and requirements?”, not the cost.

Many large organizations and brands use Open-Source software. But when choosing a core CMS, integrated Booking System or secure Payment Platform, no CEO in their right mind would say “Let’s go with the free option, it should definitely work!”. In actual fact, they would test the function, security, expandability, support and sustainability and how well the system can be integrated into the current infrastructure. 

With fonts, it shouldn’t be any different! Some typical questions here would be “Does it fit with our brand personality? Does it stand alone and is it distinctive enough to improve and encourage brand recognition? Does it support all languages and characters that we need? Does it work in Print, Web, App, Social Media and Office? Can all staff use it in a legally compliant way? Will it be further developed? And most importantly, is there someone I can call when it goes wrong?”.

A free font might be able to answer ‘yes’ to all the above questions, and if it does then maybe it is the right choice. But the decision would not actually be based on whether it is free or not but if it fits your requirements and is able to deal with all the tasks at hand.

When faced with the people who have purchasing power and make the decisions about budgets and cost, here’s how you could answer: “There’s nothing wrong with a free font but let’s not confuse ‘free’ with ‘fit for purpose’. We should choose the font that best meets and suits our requirements. If that solution happens to be free, then that’s great, but it shouldn’t be the only deciding factor.”

Well, actually quite a lot, if employees are given free rein and free range to go off and start finding free fonts on the internet on their own.

The problem isn’t so much to do with Open-Source fonts from a reputable and trustworthy source. It’s actually more to do with when a font isn’t available internally and someone hunts down a free copy from a download or piracy site. A few weeks down the line and no one can trace the source, knows if it is actually technically sound or even if it’s actually permitted for commercial use. 

So what started as a typographical problem soon escalates to a topic for IT, Legal and Compliance. This also happens when employees modify font files on their own (for example, when trying to add or alter additional characters). Any modifications can violate license conditions and bypass and corrupt established approval and security processes. 

Prioritising approved and properly licensed fonts is also a matter of IT security. The company knows where the font comes from, who is allowed to use it and who is responsible for it and who to contact if there are technical problems or questions.

So you can reply to the optimists: “When it comes to fonts, we should apply the same rules as we do for any other type of software. We need to know where it’s come from, who’s allowed to use it and who is responsible for it.”

Don’t get cross with this question or take it the wrong way, the person asking simply hasn’t recognized a font’s value yet. A few thousand Euros for a font is a lot of money! Yet the amount on the invoice reveals very little about the true cost of the investment. To determine that, we need to understand for how long and how intensively the organization will use the font as an asset. 

It’s very rare that someone can appreciate and evaluate the value of an office chair or piece of software based solely on its initial cost. Companies often factor in the duration, frequency of use and overall utilization of the asset. So why should a different logic apply to fonts? Here’s a real life example: A font license for €3500, which is used as part of a five year long campaign and presentation costs around €1.90 per day, which is less than the average cost of daily consumption of coffee in an office.

This calculation becomes really compelling and convincing when you compare the cost of a font to the lifespan of other ‘brand investments’. A campaign can last two weeks, then there’s a new one. A conference or event stand is used just a couple of times and then is changed. A corporate film becomes outdated after 24 months. In contrast, a well-considered font choice works day in, day out over many years across every one of any brand’s communication touchpoints. Therefore, the crucial question is not, “What does a font cost?” but rather, “What does it cost us annually? And what value does it deliver during that time?”. 

So when you’re standing in front of the Board, this is how you can answer that question: “Let’s not regard this investment in isolation. If we use the fonts for five years, they’ll cost us just a few Euros a day, and, in return, they will represent our brand every single time our audience or customers interact with them.”

First things first, you can’t actually ‘buy’ a font in the traditional sense because they are legally protected as software and intellectual property. Whenever you spend money on a font, you are acquiring a License to be able to use it (aka End User License Agreement) that grants you the right to use the font software under specific conditions.

Font Licensing is complicated and differs from foundry to foundry. Although many foundries distinguish between similar types of usage, such as Desktop, Web or App, the actual terms and prices can vary hugely. This will vary hugely when the price depends on the number of users, amount of traffic and other variable metrics, so it’s really worth paying attention and checking the terms!

And this is where Font Licensing becomes more a case of risk assessment and risk management. Companies should not only ask, what the cost of the font is today or on an annual basis, but if the license will evolve alongside any potential future business growth or expansion. Fair licensing models often take this into account and allow for some degree of flexibility, so that in the event of adding an extra employee or when traffic spikes or there’s an extra app, the license isn’t immediately violated. 

So to answer this question, you can say: “We’re not paying for the same typeface each year. We are in fact ensuring that our User licenses evolve and align with our own company growth and development, thereby ensuring there are no nasty surprises!”

To return to that very first question, “Why should we pay for fonts?”… Perhaps your boss or the management team should assess and evaluate the cost of the investment in fonts in the same way they would invest in hardware and infrastructure. So then, instead, the question becomes “What does this purchase achieve? How often will it be used? How long does it hold it’s value? Are there alternatives?”. 

A typeface only becomes expensive when it doesn’t deliver value relative to its price and if it will eventually need to be replaced. In contrast, a well-considered and well-chosen font at a reasonable license fee can be a surprisingly cost-effective and worthwhile branding tool and investment that does the job for years.

—

[1] Using Type Font Characteristics to Communicate Brand Personality of New Brands, Journal of Brand Management, Springer Nature, 2012
[2] Why fonts make us feel: A scientific study exploring the emotional impact of type. Neurons × Monotype, London 2021

Nevertheless, the festival will be remembered for its powerful films and outstanding actors and actresses. Perhaps also for its visual identity, even if it only reached Berliners, tourists, and festival-goers. Berlin-based designer Claudia Schramke was once again responsible for the poster and key visual of the 2026 Berlinale. Festive, colorful, and playful, the bear returned to the center stage of the visual identity. Schramke describes the core concept of the brand as follows: “This year’s Berlinale Bear is a veritable festival creature, composed of points of light that represent people, perspectives, and films. They come together, connect, enter into a dialogue, and collectively become something greater and stronger.”

To contrast with the vibrant colors of the key visual, Schramke chose a clean typography. White, static text set as a consistent typographic block — compact, precise, and in a uniform font size. This rigor ensures a powerful visual presence and clear legibility. For the typeface, the choice fell on Tausend, a new sans-serif family from Fontwerk, designed by Christoph Koeberlin in collaboration with Gabriel Richter. Tausend follows in the tradition of German sans-serif typefaces, but with an anarchic core: the slight overhang, the gentle top-heaviness, the smile and wink in the curves.

Koeberlin describes his typeface’s personality as: “Brutally honest, self-assured, and confident.” Not a bad choice for a festival that has had to weather a lot of headwinds. In particular the optical size Tausend Medium, which is dense, compact and with unpolished forms, leaves a strong and lasting impression on the branding.

“Visually, Tausend stands out with its clear, concise design and unmistakable Berlin flair: minimalist, self-assured, and subtly distinctive. It remains understated enough not to dominate, yet possesses enough character to lend depth to the visual identity. Providing an ideal complement to the expressive yet delicate, particle-based key visual,” noted Claudia Schramke.

For Fontwerk, the 2026 Berlinale appearance is more than just another case study. For the second year in a row, Claudia Schramke has chosen a typeface from our library for the globally renowned film festival (in 2025, she chose Pangea). The fact that a designer has once again reached for one of our fonts is no coincidence: it speaks to the breadth and contemporary appeal of the Fontwerk portfolio.

Try Tausend

Try Tausend

What began as a local initiative in Oakland has evolved into a transregional community that provides a platform for Latinas in one of the world’s most dynamic economic regions. To really bring cohesion to any collective, a clear and compelling visual identity that makes their energy visible is vital. The Chingonas’ visual identity revolves around their collective strength. It captures the presence and energy of its members, blending boldness with warmth and openness. This is evident across every medium: in the logo, in printed materials, on posters, and, of course, on social media, where the Chingonas reach their widest audience. But an enormously expressive visual language also unfolds on canvas bags, T-shirts, and other merchandise: unmistakable, feminist, festive.

The person responsible for the visual identity is Sofia Llaguno, a Mexican designer based in San Francisco. Her goal was to develop an identity that isn’t imposed on the collective but rather emerges from the values, attitude, and energy of the women who embody it. The color palette reflects this passion through an interplay of deep and vibrant reds, balanced with warm neutrals. As the brand typeface, Llaguno chose Nikolai Condensed, a display typeface whose angular, striking forms embody exactly what the collective radiates: strength without harshness, boldness without fanfare.

Nikolai is a modern serif with distinctive architecture and typographic impact. Designed by Franziska Weitgruber, it evolved from a Renaissance model into an emancipated, contemporary family with strong contrast and angular forms that have outgrown any historical template.

Chingonas Collective uses the Condensed Light style: slim, upright, and with the sharpness the collective aims to project. As a corporate font, Nikolai delivers exactly the impact it was made for: confident in appearance and unmistakable across every channel. Sofia Llaguno describes Nikolai’s strength as follows:

According to Llaguno, the brand exudes an atmosphere reminiscent of “red lipstick and hoop earrings”, self-assured, uncompromising, and festive.

Try Nikolai

Representing the best of the best, TDC awards are presented those who clearly stand out from the crowd.

Up until now, it was simply a matter of being crowned a winner of an award (Certificate of Typographic Excellence). But this year, for the first time ever, there is a gold, silver, and bronze award in each category.

What can we say? The Tausend Collection has won one of the first new TDC Type-High Awards in bronze, this is hot on the heels of the Hiiibrand Awards, the international ADC Awards, and the German ADC Awards. In the ‘Text + Display Typefaces’ category, Tausend was also named Judges’ Choice, which is the personal favorite entry for each competition judge. These tend to be some of the most exemplary works, but do not require unanimous approval.

Even though the ‘Audience Award’ remains the most important one for us, receiving recognition from the highest authority naturally feels incredibly good.

Once again, we extend our heartfelt congratulations to the two designers, Christoph Koeberlin and Gabriel Richter, for this thoroughly deserved recognition!

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She is best known to a wide audience through her ARD late night show ‘Inas Nacht’, in which she has combined music, conversations and North German directness since 2007. At the same time, she has established herself as a musician with several successful albums in which she combines personal lyrics with musical authenticity.

Her most successful album to date, 6.0, was released on November 14, 2025 and Müller reached number one in the German charts for the first time. The album cover is decorated in bright red and is dedicated to love in all its facets, from the beautiful to the humorous to the bittersweet moments. 6.0 marks not only a commercial peak, but also an artistic moment of intensification: reduced, self-confident and clear in expression.

This attitude is also reflected in the artwork. Sven Grot from the Hamburg design agency B—99 was hired as Art Director by Sony Music and was responsible for the design and visual concept. The project encompasses a wide range of formats: from a simple CD digipack to various vinyl editions, including a gatefold double album and an elaborately produced limited edition with a large-format photo book in a slipcase.

In several design meetings, Sven Grot, Ina Müller, and her music manager Adriana Schulz developed a visual identity that focuses on photography accompanied by strong typography. This design language was also to be reflected on the Ina Müller website.

The central player in the artwork is our very own Sans, McQueen, whose namesake reinforces her DNA: the antihero with two faces. The core family combines contradictory principles: a strong contrast with ink-trap-like cuts and geometric architecture. This is precisely why McQueen is exceptionally legible, even in the small print. For 6.0, McQueen proved to be the ideal choice. It stands out powerfully against the reduced, visual power of the imagery and works well both in the title sentence and in the paragraph text. Together, photography and text give the album artwork a timeless presence.

“It was important to me to find a typeface that had something special and harmonized well with photography.” recalls art director Sven Grot.

The final decision for the typeface landed on McQueen in Regular and Bold – not least because Ina Müller immediately fell in love with the design. “As always, she was right,” said Grot. So, it’s no surprise that McQueen now also features on Ina’s website.

Try McQueen

Try McQueen