Adelina Shaidullina: You’ve told the story of your studio dozens of times already. To me it sounded like “Jakob wanted to create a studio, and Nils wanted to create a studio, and we never worked together before starting a business.” Didn’t you think that was too risky?

Nils Thomsen: It was almost 10 years ago. I knew Jakob because he was also studying at my university in Kiel, and we were both starting out in type design. Getting exposure or clients was challenging for an independent designer producing one or two typefaces per year. It was also hard to find colleagues with similar skills and goals.

I felt that Jakob and I shared the same vision, so I simply asked if he was interested in starting a foundry, and he said, «Yes, I’m thinking about it.» Since we didn’t know each other well, we didn’t risk our friendship being affected by business. We didn’t know where the journey would take us — there was no goal of having TypeMates in 10 years. We were young, 30 years young.

AS: Would you recommend this approach to a person who wants to start a studio these days?

NT: It’s always better to start something than just plan to start something.

Conto Collection designed by Nils Thomsen in 2014

Jakob Runge: The funny thing is, when Lisa joined after three years of TypeMates, we had to calculate the company’s value to determine her entry fee. At that moment, we realized that, in the first two years, we hadn’t earned anything specific for running the foundry. Our income came from creating typefaces and selling licenses, but there was no business plan. Looking back, I think it was good not to focus on one. If we had a business plan and saw no perspective for our business after two years, we might have shut everything down. Instead, we kept going, until, fortunately, the business started to work out.

Ilya Ruderman: I imagine it was super cheap for Lisa to join you guys after three years then!

JR: Actually, no, because the third year went really well.

IR: So there are three partners now?

JR: Yes, and it’s funny because, on our website, we call Nils and me founding partners, while Lisa — the managing partner since she’s not a founder. As a result, all the spam emails go to her. Whenever someone has a «revolutionary AI business idea,» they always contact Lisa, assuming she’s in charge of everything. So we are not in a hurry to change her or our title and receive the spam three times.

IR: Smart move.

Harrison Serif designed by Jakob Runge and Lisa Fischbach in 2018

AS: Ilya, would you consider bringing on a managing partner?

IR: Unfortunately, it would be extremely expensive for anyone to join us. Our platform is complex, and it’s not profitable enough to justify such a big financial risk. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to join us.

JR: Thinking about someone joining us now, we’re also facing a challenge for our custom projects and revenue model. With three partners, any new idea requires convincing both Nils and Lisa. If there were four or five people, I think it would be even harder to keep things moving.

IR: The bigger the board, the slower you move.

NT: Is it better to have one king!

JR: I think TypeMates benefits from being a collective. It was not Nils’ foundry or Jakob’s foundry — it’s a group of people. If someone is focused on family or developing their own typeface, it doesn’t change how we’re perceived. We share and exchange ideas, and I think that collaborative workflow really adds value. So in our case, having one king wouldn’t work.

AS: This discussion is getting dangerous since the one-king idea came up… let’s switch topics. Albert-Jan Pool was your teacher, and now you publish his typefaces. How does that feel?

NT: It’s different because we didn’t meet in person for the collaboration. Back in school, we saw each other every week and chatted, but that was 15 years ago. Now, our discussions happen over email, and it feels different, but it’s an honour that he chose to publish with us. It’s his way of saying, “My students have done a good job and have a great foundry. I can release my new typeface with them.”

Altona designed by Antonia Cornelius, Albert-Jan Pool and Julia Uplegger in 2024

Alison Head and Alison Text designed by Antonia Cornelius, Albert-Jan Pool and Julia Uplegger in 2024

JR: Most of our external designers just accept our encodings, workflow, and production methods. Albert had a lot of different ideas and opinions. For instance, he argued about whether to use tabular currency symbols. Albert is strongly against them. It was an enriching challenge for us. We’ll feel very proud to have worked with him. Many of our designers, like Philip Neumeyer, also studied Albert’s way of doing stuff.

What I really admire about Albert is that he respects your design approach. He won’t tell a student what’s best but will ask questions instead, acting more like a coach than a king. People who studied with him have learned to be flexible and open to ideas, rather than rigidly following one way of doing things.

Norbert designed by Philip Neumeyer in 2021

IR: I met Albert-Jan Pool for the first time 20 years ago. I was in TypeMedia, and he visited The Hague. At the time, he was mainly known as the author of DIN. He brought some archive materials, which was impressive. Back then, he seemed quite open-minded, though he could be stubborn about certain visions, especially concerning revivals where you need to respect the original. I can imagine, though, that it might be hard to convince him about certain things or standards. Designers of his generation, who often sold fonts through platforms like Linotype, might be a bit distanced from the real clients. Sometimes, they get caught up in theoretical ideas about clients’ needs, whereas we’re in direct contact with our clients. Sometimes we do need to deliver tabular currency symbols, and that’s totally fine. We can debate their aesthetic, but clients need them.

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Royal Prussian Railway Administration master drawings (1897) which influenced the design of FF DIN

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Royal Prussian Railway Administration master drawings (1897) which influenced the design of FF DIN

JR: Actually, I like tabular figures. Sometimes, I use them as default figures. If the Euro sign works in the tabular version, I’ll just make everything tabular.

IR: That won’t work for all the currencies. Remember Peseta, the old currency? It’s represented by three letters, Pts. It’s tough to fit into a tabular version.

JR: True, but our current encoding doesn’t even include the shekel symbol by default, so it’s easier to create a tabular figures set.

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A 1970s typewriter with the Pts symbol

AS: You attend legibility conferences and work with researchers, but aren’t most legibility tips just common sense?

JR: I had this conversation with Antonia, the author of Cera Mono. She’s done a lot of legibility research, and from her perspective, it’s often about finding scientific proof for what we already know intuitively. When you’ve worked with type for years, you understand things like spacing, letter differentiation, and rhythm. But for those outside the type design world, having scientific evidence really helps. Simply saying «I know from experience» doesn’t usually convince people to switch from Helvetica to a more legible typeface.