I’m an artist and independent font maker, that loves creating distinctive typographic landscapes and developing innovative ideas, working in close col­lab­oration with dedicated people that make me smile. Besides type and books, I'm interested in a broad spectrum of things – such as philosophy, psychology, sustainability, theatre and dancing (especially contact/impro). I’m currently located in Plauen/Nuremberg (DE) and Cairo (EG) – where I teached Latin and Arabic type design at the German University (2017—2024).

– Portfolio.pdf [40mb] + CV.pdf [March 2025]







— New Business Model, starting March 2025 —
🏘️ 🗓️ 💸 🧑‍💻 🤸 🪅
– Working for foundries, design studios & artists mainly
– Book me by the day / check the calendar for availability*
– Much lower standard rates: 160€—400€/day
– Pay me monthly in small rates, no interest charges
– Smallest freelance contract: 3 months, 1 day/month
– Straight forward casual communication
– Backup: trusted designers, that can fill in seamlessly
– Consulting/Workshop rates: 0€—1600€/day
– Extra value-based bonus after completion: up to you :)

Looking forward to working together!
Don’t hesitate to contact me: manuel (-at-) vongebhardi.com
✉️ 📯
*Calendar will be public soon – just mail me for now. 🙏








— Selected Retail —
Dialogue is an unconventional collection of four intertwined text typefaces: Lawson, Ruth, Tony and Danny. They are especially crafted to suite the artistic and functional needs of contemporary cultural publications across different media. Another key feature is their versatility due the many ways you can mix the distinct styles that have been developed to complement one another. The project started as a part of my master thesis in 2015/16 in Reading, UK.

[2018—2020: In-Use / free specimen / photo on top right]
→ Get a free printed copy of the large-scale KSB Magazine (DE)
Tony, Lawson, Danny and Ruth have been typeset beautifully by Bureau Est  for issue 31, 32, 33 & 34. (shipping excluded)


[April 2020: Official Pre-Pelease, redrawn and expanded]
→ New Specimen [4mb] and request Beta Trials + License Info


[Januar 2025: Finished, going to be published via Fontwerk, Berlin]
→ Request early Access: Trials + License Info

— Selected Bespoke/Custom —

Chelsea FC Superfamily, F37 + Uncommon, 2024

– with Ryan Hellyer Williamson, Alfonso García, Rodrigo Fuenzalida,
– Shaqa Bovand, Roman Tronchin – such an amazing team!

– Creative Direction: Rick Banks & Uncommon

– I worked mainly on X-Sharp and Flare

MotoGP Display, F37 + Pentagram, 2024

– with the amazing Ryan Hellyer Williamson

– Creative Direction: Rick Banks & Pentagram, London

– I worked mainly within the initial design phase, also
– creating lots of alternates and defining weights and widths

— Selected Arabic Extension —

Bolton Arabic, F37, 2024

– with with the amazing Shaqa Bovand
– Trials + Licenses (F37)

— Selected Research —

Variables of Type is a systematic investigation into all visual aspects of type. This involves analysing many diverse and complex scripts such as Latin, Chinese, Devanagari and Arabic — to find underlying global principles and relationships. The aim of this project is to come up with a flexible system that could describe any writing system in detail. While many scripts are represented, it is still most excessivley visualised in Latin. Work in progress since 2013.

→ More impressions and bibliography [German, 2013]
→ Type Design Framework [2017]

— Cairo Type Collective —

Heheh Collective is an Arabic type design collective based in Cairo. It was founded in February 2020 by Nour El Shamy, Shahd El Sabbagh and Manuel von Gebhardi. Get your hands on Dobb and Gawhar distributed via the lovely platform: Future Fonts.

— Teaching Type Design in Cairo —






Students had to develop a typeface related to a chosen Movie Character, Latin+Arabic (5th+6th semester), with Kholoud Khaled Essawy, Cairo, 2017/18









— Some more impressions of my work —

Logotype and customized typeface for the conceptional fashion label Super Health, founded by Alexandra Börner, 2017



Corporate Identity for the sustainable product label Megalomania, Photos by Patrick Müßiggang, 2015


Variable font experiments for Google Fonts (Github Repo), 2016/17



Experimental “parametric” (hierarchical interpolation) type design and custom interpolation plugin/script in Glyphs 1, 2014


Various typefaces and experiments, 2012—14



Visual identity and a series of bi-annual visual sup-identities for an international gathering of art and design students in Halle, 2012—13



Event Identity for an exhibition in Amsterdam, 2012  +  Leaflet/Poster for an independent snowboard movie, 2011



Webdesign and Code for the Art Collective Klub7 with Markus Lange, 2014  +  Moholy-Nagy Installation with Patrick Müßiggang and Lukas Adolphi, 2011



Year Book for the Burg Giebichenstein University with Patrick Müßiggang, 2016/17









— Background —
I graduated with distinction in type design from the University of Reading (UK); received my BA in Graphic Design from the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle; and studied seven months at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. I’m very grateful having been taught by Andrea Tinnes, Roman Wilhelm, Dan Reynolds, Radim Peško, Gerard Unger and Gerry Leonidas. My very first font was a grafitti inspired all caps design, made with the genuine Freehand & Fontlab in 2005. It’s too good to be shown (-;



— Services/Freelance, Latin & Arabic —
The cost for custom comissions can range widely and it depends on what you need. Please get in touch with more information about your project and I’ll walk you through. Common enquiries:

☞ Design Strategies $$—$$$$
☞ Typographic Art Direction $—$$$
☞ Custom Typefaces $$—$$$$ ♡
☞ Customizing Typefaces $—$$ ♡
☞ Custom Lettering $—$$
☞ Wordmark Optimisation $—$$
☞ Technical Consulting $—$$
☞ Font Engineering $—$$
☞ Collaborations priceless ♡
☞ Lectures & Workshops $—$$$ ♡

Looking forward to working together.
Don’t hesitate to contact me: manuel (-at-) vongebhardi.com








— Looking for freelancers/collaborators —
🧑🏽‍💼👩🏻‍💻🕵🏾‍♀️👩🏼‍🏭👩🏾‍🎓👩🏾‍🎤👩🏾‍🏫🧑🏼‍🎨👩🏿‍🚀👷🏻‍♂️
Positions [starting 4 d/month, later up to 3d/week]
– Developer [Python, JavaScript, Automation, FrontEnd, Github, Mac, Chat-GPT, ...]
– Arabic Font-Engineer/Type-Designer [mainly Mastering, some OT Features, Glyphs]
– Assistent/Co-Manager [Slack, Google Docs, Process Optimisation, (Chat-GPT), Cairo-based]

freelancejobs (-at-) vongebhardi.com
– CV + Portfolio [just whatever it is, no need to customize it]
– Your day rate, min—max [6 hour work day + 2 hours optional self-education]
– One paragraph about work [what are you passionate about ...]
– One paragraph about life [... voice message is also godd, max: 10min]
– Most favourite project(s)? [tell me what was so great about it]
– Contact info and Co [website, instagram, linkedin, github, x, mastodon, whatsapp, tele, ...]
– Optional: some snapshots/photos [you, family, nature, neighbourhood, ... whatever]

— Social & Co —
☞ instagram/Manuel.vonGebhardi
☞ twitter/ManuelvGebhardi
☞ github/manuel87



— Typefaces Used —
☞ Ruth Book (Dialogue Collection) — pre‑release access here
☞ Lyon Italic — by Kai Bernau, Commercial Type
☞ San Francisco Text on Mac / Arial on Android, Windows & Linux

Last Update: March 2025