Meet the Team
Thank you all very much.
Have you already seen the images of our headquarters? If you haven't, please enjoy the free tour! After you have gotten to know the office space, you can get to know the people that make the office lively. Without any doubt I can say that the heart of Identity Letters are the beautiful people I work with. And this will be the focus of this article. It's not about me, but if you want to get to know me, please read the latest interview.
What you need to know is that before I founded Identity Letters, I released my typefaces at resellers like Fontspring, YWFT and all these Monotype Channels. My daily life surrounded around designing, producing and uploading new typefaces. No additional tasks, if you skip business administrations like doing your taxes. Since the start of Identity letters in mid 2020, my work has changed rapidly. Today, Identity Letters can't be managed by just myself anymore. Within the years I started to collaborate with designers on a regular basis, who I want to introduce to you now.
Meet the Team
First of all, meet Kathrin Borhof. She is not only my partner, but also responsible for all customer support. No matter if messages come from social media or mail, you will get in contact with her first hand. Additionally she is the one giving me feedback about new typefaces in the earliest stages. Besides her work for Identity Letters, she is an illustrator and painter. Even a 1.60m x 1.60m canvas does not scares her.
The text you are reading right now was firstly written by me and this time not edited by Johannes López Ayala. We met during our studies at HS Düsseldorf. Since then, he has become a close friend and mentor, helping and guiding me on almost every step of the way. I can safely say that Identity Letters wouldn't have gotten this far without him. I did send him this text before publishing it and he called it a “nice draft”. Seriously, this is like a knighthood to me.
Christian Gruber is the first external type designer, who released his typeface with Identity Letters. I am honored that he gave his typeface into my foundry and trusted me to market it. I hope, in the future there will be more designers submitting their typefaces and asking to release it with Identity Letters. Don't be shy. Back to Christian: he owns two cats. I'm slightly jealous. He leads with 2:0 cats. One day I might take the lead, but I am still on the cat or dog fight with Kathrin.
Over the years while I was focussing more and more on type design, I realized that I have become a bad graphic designer. Not bad per se, but my skills didn't match my requirements or took way too long. This is why I started to collaborate with Manuel Kreuzer. He is the creator of all these exciting visuals of my typefaces, while I concentrated on the calm (or boring) ones. He also designed our website. Manuel, living in the very south east of Germany, is one of the most famous designers of Germany (in case you say that Bavaria belongs to Germany)
Additionally to these ones, there are friends, who I talk to on an almost daily basis via our Slack Group. I don’t call them colleagues anymore, over the years they have all become friends of mine. Within this group of type designers, we give us feedback on all questions that matter: Does the "g" look nice? Have you tried this script? How do you like this draft? Which office chair are you sitting on? … Next to the persons introduced above, the group is home to these designers: Anita Jürgeleit, Vitória Neves, Dominique Kerber, Felix Braden, Guido Schneider, Julien Fincker, Marc Lohner
The Past
I began designing typefaces in 2015. Since this time, I have met a lot of people that had a huge impact on my career and I can say that I am truly thankful to have met them.
Prof. Dr. Jörg Petri: In his course I discovered my passion for typography. Without his enthusiasm in typography, I probably would still design websites or would have become an UX designer.
Stefan Claudius: During my bachelor thesis with Prof. Dr. Petri, I worked on my first typeface. Prof. Dr. Petri connected me with Stefan Claudius of Cape Arcona Foundry. Stefan gave a lot of advice and helped to develop the very first version of my typeface „James“. With Stefan, I made my first steps in type design.
Pilar Cano. After I had finished my studies, I applied for the Alphabets Mentorship Programme, to finally release my typeface James with a foundry. With Pilar, who had endless patience with me, I refined the concept and design of my typeface James. When you read the next lines, you will see our success :)
Alberto Romanos: Alberto accepted my typeface James to be released in his foundry Branding with Type. This was a huge step. Bw James has gone offline in the meantime, but Alberto helped me get my first step into the type design business, for which I am very grateful.
Frank E. Blokland: In 2017/18 I attended the Expert class Type design within the Museum Plantin Moretus in Antwerp, Belgium. Our teacher Frank gave me a deeper understanding of type design and trained my eyes. Thanks to Frank I design typefaces much better now.
Eloïse Parrack & Elí Castellanos: Both also attended the Expert class Type design and we are still in contact regularly. We are still working together on our group project, so I can say the course isn't finished yet. See you o the weekends.
Victor Malsy: Simultaneously to the Expert class Type design I did the masters in communication design at HS Düsseldorf. My master thesis covered the theoretical part of Custom Corporate Typefaces as well as an analysis of existing typefaces of German companies. Basically, my foundry and its name are based on the work Victor accompanied. You can read the theoretical part within my blog and I promise it is less theoretical than you might think right now.