Grato and Gratimo Collection

TypeMates: a straightforward font foundry.

For years, we — Jakob, Lisa and Nils — have been passionate about type and in 2015 we started working together, from our offices in Munich and Hamburg, as a type foundry.

We don’t believe that typefaces are neutral or purely functional systems for reading, rather that they are a visual language with emotional values. Our aim is to be straightforward in the complex field of type design. We do not want to hype or praise type too much, we want to work together with our clients and partners to deliver good results.

Our practice covers everything, from the tiniest nuance in a logo or piece of lettering to the design of extensive type systems. And whether it’s a beautiful idea, a complex client project with intense technical demands, or we’re just following our investigative TypeMate’s nose — we’re passionate about well-made letterforms delivered to the highest technical standard.

Whether it’s Die Zeit online, Fast Company, Red Bull TV or Lufthansa Magazine, typefaces we designed are used by magazines, newspapers and corporations who set the bar for design.

From 2009 Jakob Runge has been fired by letters and type systems. After studying communication design at the University of applied sciences in Würzburg (BA) and then at Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel (MA), his master’s project was published as FF Franziska in 2014, and became a successful textface at FontFont.

A new dad, he works in Munich as an independent type and brand designer who specialises in developing typefaces and custom lettering for corporate and editorial design.

Alongside working in the design industry, Jakob is active in typographic education. Along with running numerous workshops at universities in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, he has been a lecturer for typography and type design at FH Münster from 2011. For him, type design is more than the foundation of precise and coherent communication: it’s a passion. twitter, website

Mona is a freelance designer specialized in type and corporate design. She teaches type and typography at Hochschule München. In 2018, Mona graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague with a TypeMedia master’s degree. In her final project, she developed Bridge Head and Text, typefaces now published by TypeMates. Her professional experience includes working with corporate agencies like MetaDesign Berlin, Martin et Karczinski and Blackspace, and the fabulous foundry Bold Monday. Due to her special interest, jobs that made use of her vector skills kept landing on her desk: the refresh of the Lufthansa crane logo, and the research and briefing for the new Lufthansa typeface. Mona loves to connect people and build bridges between different design disciplines.

Teja Smrekar graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana where she became fascinated by letterforms and typography. She continued her studies at the University of Reading (UK) where she completed a Master’s degree in Typeface Design in 2016. She often collaborates with clients from all over the world. Alongside her type design practice, she loves challenges in graphic design projects. Her passion for handmade fonts led her to establish Flehatype type foundry. She teaches a typography class at the Faculty of Design in Ljubljana.