Typefaces reflect a culture’s priorities and aspirations. This is why we keep designing new typefaces – the job isn’t done.
Klim Type Foundry (Klim) was founded by Kris Sowersby in 2005 and is based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Our foundational ethos is “a thing well made”. Our typefaces combine historical knowledge with rigorous contemporary craft. We believe the alphabet is a concept made concrete through written and designed letterforms — the alphabet is not defined by a single typeface but expressed through all of them.
Our retail catalogue features fonts suitable for a complete range of use, from small and functional to large and decorative. They can be licensed for use across physical and digital applications. Our in use section showcases the many, varied examples of our fonts used by international brands, institutions and businesses of all sizes.
We have designed custom fonts for international clients such as The Financial Times, PayPal and National Geographic. Our fonts are included in Apple’s operating system, from macOS Catalina 10.15.4. Closer to home we have created custom fonts for The Bank of New Zealand, Trade Me and Tourism New Zealand.
Our work has won numerous awards. Most recently the Epicene Collection received a Gold Cube from the ADC and a Certificate of Typographic Excellence from the TDC.
Kris Sowersby
Director & lead type designer
Since releasing his first retail typeface, Feijoa, in 2007, Kris has received numerous awards and accolades, including: a Certificate of Excellence from the New York Type Directors Club for his second typeface, National, in 2007; being named an ADC Young Gun by the New York Type Directors Club for his first typeface, in 2010; being accepted as a member of the prestigious Alliance Graphique Internationale (the second New Zealander to do so) in 2013; and receiving the John Britten Black Pin in 2015, the highest award given by the Designers Institute of New Zealand. In 2019, Kris was named an Art Laureate by The Arts Foundation for his continuing contribution to New Zealand Art and Design. Kris has presented at venues around the world and continues to seek opportunities where he can share his typographic knowledge and interest.
Noe Blanco
Type designer & font engineer
Noe is a typeface designer and font engineer at Klim, based in Barcelona. Working across design and engineering, she contributes to the development and production of Klim’s typefaces. She enjoys troubleshooting and resolving technical issues of Klim’s fonts, ensuring their performance and reliability within all kinds of environments. She graduated from the Master Type and Media at the Royal Academy of Arts at The Hague in 2012. She teaches type design and font engineering at the Tipo-g type design course. Before joining Klim, Noe worked independently with various foundries and continues to support them in bringing projects to final release.
Rosalie Wagner
Type designer & font engineer
Rosalie Wagner is a part-time type designer and font engineer for Klim, based in Berlin. She contributes to the development and quality assurance of typefaces. She teaches typography at the Mediadesign Hochschule für Design und Informatik in Berlin and regularly leads type design and font engineering workshops. After graduating from the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon in 2016, she completed an 18-month postgraduate research programme at the Atelier National de Recherche Typographique (ANRT) in Nancy, France. Rosalie’s work includes projects released through 205TF and collaborations with Google Fonts, Zalando, Die Grünen, Words of Type, GlyphsApp, Rosetta Type, Fatype, Fontwerk and NaN.
Sonja Schröder
Sales, customer support and administration
Sonja provides sales support to Klim’s corporate customers, as well as general customer support for all font licensing and deals with media inquiries. She is also the main admin support for the Klim team. Before working for Klim, her professional background was in Film and TV production, HR and recruitment in roles in Germany, UK and Australia. Sonja is originally from Germany and lives in Wellington, close to Klim HQ.
Peter Dekkers
Software engineer
Peter manages Klim’s technical strategy. As a full stack software engineer he looks after Klim’s digital presence and provides tools and processes to streamline typeface production, sales and business administration. Originally from Belgium he has worked with Klim since 2017 and officially joined the foundry in 2020.
Lyle Chetty
Contract adviser
Lyle assists Klim with corporate licensing and legal contracts. He studied law at Victoria University of Wellington and has a background in contract negotiation and risk management.
Dave Foster
Based in Sydney, Australia, Dave works part-time for Klim as a Typeface Designer. Dave graduated with a Bachelor of Communication Design from Swinburne University in 2005. He worked as a graphic designer for six years before gaining a Masters in Typeface Design from the Royal Academy of Art at The Hague in 2012. His graduating typeface, Blanco, won gold at The Morisawa Type Design Competition the same year. Returning to Australia, he established Foster Type, which designs retail and custom type, as well as helping other foundries produce their releases. In addition to Klim he has worked for Commercial Type, Frere-Jones Type, House Industries and Letterror.
Thy Hà
Thy is a Vietnamese web and type designer based in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. Her work challenges Western-centric narratives through an inclusive, culturally grounded practice. Alongside her own type practice, Thy consults for type foundries and designers on Vietnamese typography, and is a member of both Lưu Chữ, a Vietnamese typography collective, and Counter Forms, an Antipodean type collective. She is currently pursuing a PhD examining Việt hoá fonts, exploring how typefaces like Cooper Black or Hobo have taken over Vietnamese vernacular signage.
Ben Kiel
Ben Kiel runs Typefounding in Saint Louis, Missouri. He solves interesting technical problems relating to fonts and typeface design when he isn’t running the retail type foundry XYZ Type with Jesse Ragan.
Jason Yuan
Jason Yuan is an actor turned designer of humane interfaces. He studied Theatre at Northwestern University and received his BFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has worked for Apple, Klim, Sensei and Sony Music on projects spanning motion, user experience and product design.
Hera Lindsay Bird
Hera graduated from the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2011 and has since won a number of prestigious poetry and book awards. In 2018, Hera collaborated on a publishing project with Klim and Alt Group. “Sincerity/Irony” is the result – a book written by Bird, designed by Alt Group, and set in Klim’s Heldane.
Panos Haratzopoulos
Panos Haratzopoulos is an expert in Greek typeface design. He has been active in the graphic design field since 1990. He works as a design consultant and educator in Greece and internationally. He holds a Master of Arts — Graphic Fine Arts from the University of Kent, UK.
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson is a designer that likes creating new things. He’s drawn to the nexus of disciplines that can craft beautiful experiences for people while being committed to solving complex human problems responsibly. He is currently an Interaction Designer at Medium.
Extended Whānau
Graphic design
Extended Whānau is a design consultancy based in Aotearoa New Zealand, founded by Tyrone Ohia (Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāi te Rangi, Ngā Pōtiki). The studio has been at the forefront of developing contemporary brand identities that merge indigenous knowledge with strategic design thinking. Their work includes the celebrated Toi Tū Toi Ora exhibition identity for the largest ever survey of Māori art. The identity for Matariki, the country’s first indigenous public holiday. As well as the brand for New Zealand’s first Māori public art gallery, the Wairau Māori Art Gallery.
Practise
Graphic design
Practise is a Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland-based design studio run by James Goggin and Shan James, working with international clients on creative direction, design, and cultural projects, with a particular specialisation in contemporary art and publishing. The studio has previously been based in the UK, the Netherlands, and the US. Clients include Art Institute of Chicago, David Zwirner, Freedom Reads, Letterform Archive, Tate, and Whitney Museum of American Art.
DayMonthYear
Design & strategy
DayMonthYear (aka DDMMYY) was founded by Kelvin Soh in 2009. It is a multidisciplinary brand and design studio based in Auckland, working across strategy, identity, packaging and communication. The studio partners with founders, owners, and marketers to bring clarity to complex challenges and shape brands that are both distinctive and effective. The studio’s approach blends strategic thinking with creative exploration, underpinned by its proprietary strategic framework, to create brands that are coherent, culturally relevant, and built for long-term growth.
Alt Group
Design & strategy
Alt Group was founded by Ben Corban and Dean Poole in 1999. Alt Group is a multidisciplinary design firm based in Auckland. The company works across: strategy design, content design, graphic design, communications design, interactive design and experience design. Alt Group has won more than 500 international and national awards, and works for a diverse range of corporates and government organisations including Auckland Art Gallery, Fisher & Paykel, Auckland Council and City of Melbourne.
Springload
Website design & development
Springload is Wellington’s largest independently owned digital agency. They’re changing the way businesses, government, and not-for-profits work and connect. They do this through the clever use of technology and by taking a human-centred approach to everything they do. Springload improves the lives of their customers, colleagues and communities by making digital experiences that matter, better.
