With the typeface Josef K *, Julia Sysmäläinen turns once more to Franz Kafka’s writing style. This time the designer of FF Mister K is not drawn to the works Kafka created by night as an author, but to those he produced during daytime in his professional life as a high-ranking, confident bureaucrat – Dr Franz Kafka.

Typeface Josef K echoes Kafka’s prestigious status at his working place, the Workmen’s Accident Insurance Institute of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is a bold script with its ductus derived from a broad-nibbed ink pen and combines a clear, self-confident stroke with the calligraphic features so typical for Franz Kafka’s handwriting. With more than 2500 glyphs and Western, Central European and Extended Cyrillic character sets, it is a truly pan-European script.

*Kafka’s persona Josef K is a leading bank officer – reminiscent of the author himself – in the novel The Trial.