Yanone Kaffeesatz was first published in 2004 and is my first ever finished typeface. Its Bold is reminiscent of 1920s coffee house typography, while the rather thin fonts bridge the gap to present times. Lacking self confidence and knowledge about the type scene I decided to publish the family for free under a Creative Commons License. A decision that should turn out one of the best I ever made. It has been downloaded over 100, 000 times to date from this website alone, and you can witness Kaffeesatz use on German fresh-water gyms, Dubai mall promos and New Zealand McDonald’s ads. And of course on coffee and foodstuff packaging and café design around the globe.

In 2009 I reworked much of the typeface, and it got published in FontShop’s FontFont Library under the new name FF Kava. You can read more about it in an extensive article by Yves Peters on the FontFeed.

In 2010 I decided to re-release the typeface under the SIL Open Font License to make it possible to include in software bundles or web font services like Google’s Font Directory.