On Friday, December 10, 2004, the German newspaper <i>Frankfurter Rundschau<i> printed the following article in their Offenbach edition. I have translated the text into English.

Around a Regular Round of Drinks, They Nurture Their Love of Lettering

The Offenbach collective TypeOff remembers the city�s typographic spice / Their Internet platform invites artists in for exchange
By Jutta Maier

The TypeOff collective is a group of students and graduates from the Offenbach College of Design (Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach). They want to create new work, without forgetting the city�s past typographic tradition.

Offenbach, December 9, 2004

�Offenbach from the early 1900s through the 1950s was one of Germany�s most creative centers for typography,� says Dan Reynolds (25), a student at the Offenbach College of Design (HfG). The old typefaces, which were designed there by artists such as Rudolf Koch, Walter Tiemann, oder Karlgeorg Hoefer for the Klingspor foundry were sold to printers in several countries around the world.

The luster of this time has since faded. Digital fonts and computer typesetting eroded the traditional type-founding market, and the Klingspor foundry itself closed down in the 1950s. �To make matters worse, type design has not been taught at the College of Design here since 1979,� complains Reynolds.

The Exchange is Missing
Not just Reynolds believes that a real exchange about typographic ideas is missing at the college: �it can be hard to find information about type design,� explains Lukas Schneider, �you really has to teach yourself how to do it.� The 31-year old graduated two years ago from the college, and has been working as a freelance designer since then.

In May, Dan Reynolds (25), David Borchers (26), Till Hopstock (26) und Lukas Schneider (31) all met at the typography conference �Typo Berlin.� There they decided to found the TypeOff collective. Since then, they�ve met once a month at a bar in Frankfurt, where designers, students, and friends from all over the world have often visited them. �It is an opportunity to talk with other people, and to get information and tips.�

All members of the collective study, live, or work in Offenbach. Most of them study at the College of Design there. They all work separately on their own individual projects.

The fonts that they have made�using both hand and digital techniques�have names such as Argos, Disco 3000, Pater Noster, or Sweet Pea. Most of members have worked as interns at Linotype in Bad Homburg, which is one of the largest digital foundries in the world.

TypeOff strives to remind designers in the greater Frankfurt region�especially the students there�of Offenbach�s typographic tradition. They want to arouse new interest, make innovative designs, and keep alive the memory of the city�s past.

Independent and Non-Commercial
The young artists see their website as a platform for publicity, to be viewd by others in the global typographic scene. �We want to present our typographic ideas to a broader audience, and not just use them for our own projects,� explains Dan Reynolds.

The TypeOff member invite all interested design students to view their website, and even to consider posting designs or articles on it. At the same time, they encourage students in other cities to form their own collectives. The link to TypeOff has already worked to help its members get better internships, and to improve their later career chances, says Reynolds.

Important to remember is that the group is independent from all institutions, and does not function as a commercial entity. However, Reynolds cannot entirely rule out future e-commerce ventures for the group and the website.

A love for typography and lettering unites all members of the collective. �Typefaces make graphic design original,� says Lukas Schneider. The design of a single font requires an immense amount of work. �It can take years just to develop a good, complete character set,� explains Schneider.

http://www.typeoff.de