The Cape Arcona Type Foundry is a type foundry based in Mülheim/Essen, Germany, run by Stefan Claudius and Thomas Schostok. We started it in 2002 to publish fonts we designed for Beast, a legendary PDF magazine. Our goal: typefaces with a non-conformist personality.
Over the years, the field of business expanded from individual typeface design to custom font production, corporate, and logo design and complex text-font families. This is the kind of work we love: Thinking beyond the ordinary, imagining better worlds and better fonts.
A life between font and fun
The Cape Arcona Type Foundry has its headquarter at the wonderful Cape Arcona on the Arcona Island. It was hushed for hundreds of years until we settled in an imaginary country on an island between Europe and America, exactly where we feel home. To combine democracy with monarchy, we declared them King and President. Within the borders of the country, we abolished money and introduced the production of typefaces.
For hundreds of years Cape Arcona was a melting pot for the most different cultures, but the main influences came from England, America, Spain, Germany, and France. Wherever people felt dissatisfied with their countries, they immigrated to Cape Arcona and found a friendly climate, nice folks and a peaceful place to live.
The people behind
Stefan Claudius
He is the “President” of Cape Arcona. Besides designing typefaces, he is and was teaching typography and conceptional design at the universities of Essen, Dortmund, and Hamburg. He is running the graphic design studio called Sichtvermerk.
Visit his work at www.sichtvermerk.com
Thomas Schostok
He is the “King” of Cape Arcona. Started with graphic design at the beginning of the 90s. Still focusing on web and print design, as an artist Thomas Schostok also had international exhibitions with his artworks. His love for typography can always admire in his art and design work.
Visit his work at www.ths.works
Historical awareness
For the sake of political correctness, we would like to state that we are NOT named after the luxury liner “Cap Arcona”. The ship was named after Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The thing is, that this luxury liner was used by the Nazis for transports of war prisoners. In 1945, when the WWII was nearly over, the RAF bombed the “Cap Arcona” together with two other ships and caused (together with the German soldiers who didn’t allow the prisoners to leave the ship) the death of hundreds of prisoners of their nationality.
This is a tragedy, and we would like to assure you that we didn’t have this in mind when giving our type foundry the name Cape Arcona.
Cape Television
The Cape Arcona Love Band
We are also on tour all the time with our Band. Please download our best song Hey Girl as MP3.
Declaration of Normality
The King and the President from the Cape Arcona Type Foundry giving their “Declaration of Normality”. 23-February-2009 http://vimeo.com/3334538
Coffee and Fonts
The King and the President from the Cape Arcona Type Foundry showing their secrets of how they develop new typefaces. Filmed in stunning ‘Cape Vision’. 30-January-2008 http://vimeo.com/1323241