About

Hi, my name is Ivo Gabrowitsch. I live and work in Berlin, Germany.

I’m a marketing, product, and creative professional, and I’m available with my team at Fontwerk for all type-related projects. If you ever have a question about fonts – I’m happy to help.

Photo by Norman Posselt. Hire him, because he’s good. – normanposselt.com.

(Note: Terms and Conditions of Use and Privacy Policy can be found below.)

About me

I love About pages. Learning about the people behind websites is an important part of my online experience. Since I’m certainly not the only one with this particular interest, here are a few facts about me.

I claim to know a few things about the type and design industry, having worked for brands like FontShop, FontFont, MyFonts, or Linotype for most of my professional life. Before I became a ‘Typereneur’ at my own company Fontwerk, I held the position of Senior Director of Marketing for Monotype’s Digital Commerce group. If you have a project or a question related to fonts or typography or anything else regarding the type business (even font licensing, eek), I’m your man and fun to work with.

Developing and improving products and brands is one of my favorite things to do. What I like to call marketing engineering might be better known as the traditional 4P’s marketing mix. One of the things I was responsible in that sense was the initial development and introduction of self-hosted webfonts as a business model. Its main part – the licensing based on pageviews – soon after became an industry standard.

I was also responsible for the holistic marketing activities around the release of today popular typefaces such as FF Chartwell and FF Mark as well as the launch of complex e-commerce websites and online tools as the project lead. For some of these agile products my talented teams and I received some nice accolades, including the European Design Award in gold, the German Design Award, the iF communication design award in gold, TDC Certificates of Typographic Excellence, as well as a Nomination for The Net Awards Redesign of the Year. Bling bling.

Digital Media Designer (Mediengestalter für Digital- und Printmedien) and Engineer of Print and Media Technology (Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Druck- und Medientechnik) is what is written on some official certificates of mine. I also like to spend some of my time talking about type and typography, either at conferences such as TypeCon Atlanta, ATypI Hongkong, ISType İstanbul, TYPO San Francisco, London, and Berlin, Frontend Oslo, MT Tech Summit New Delhi, and TYPO Labs Berlin for instance or in universities and organizations around the globe. I’d be happy to talk at your event as well. Feel free to drop me a line if you have a slot available.

Moreover, I published articles in online and offline publications and are available as an adviser or interviewee. Furthermore, I served as a member of the jury for the SOTA Catalyst Award as well as Typodarium. Lovely experience. A few years ago, I was also a member of DIN’s standardization committee that revised the norm 1450 ‘Lettering – Legibility’. Fun stuff, too, but I’m done with norms … I think.

I was born in the Eastern part of the Harz, more specific in the beautiful town of Wippra. This was around the time when Patrick Hernandez’ ‘Born to be alive’ reached number one in the radio charts – nomen est omen. I grew up next to a rolling mill in Hettstedt (called ‘Walzwerk’ in German, which was the inspiration for ‘Fontwerk’, this site’s former name), played football my entire youth as a right back for BSG Stahl Walzwerk, went to the Army in Hammelburg, started to study Communications and Media Technology in Köthen, qualified as a Digital Media Designer in Braunschweig – where I also felt in love with both typography and the local football team Eintracht –, and worked in this job in Goslar for a little while.

Rather late in my career I decided to study again. For this purpose I moved to Berlin, where I’m based ever since. In between, I did an internship in San Francisco, which resulted in the best job ever: Marketing Director at FontShop International, where I was in charge of the largest library of contemporary typefaces, FontFont, that includes type icons such as FF DIN, FF Meta, or FF Dax. I always considered myself to be extremely fortunate, because this job entailed working with so many talented and nice people who made awesome things with type and design.

Some side projects I started include the LTypI group (Lack of Typographic Imagination, 2008), the podcast Creative FM (2018, relaunch planned for 2021), as well as the Typostammtisch Berlin (2006).

I’m also father of three strong-minded daughters and I love bikes. Particularly those made of steel. Recently, I’m more and more into gardening. I listen to music every day, particularly to the Trance and Ambient genre. And I love podcasts. Did I mention gardening?

Well, that’s actually more than I wanted to unveil, but if you are still reading this, you are either wasting your time or you found it somewhat interesting.

About this website

This website started back in 1999 when I experimented with Netscape Composer. The result was a cluttered personal website with different kinds of topics: photo gallery, link directory, classmate index, animated GIFs, what one did before blogs or social networks existed. Although badly executed, it was also my first experience with design and typography. This made me realize where I wanted to head towards professionally. For 20 years, I maintained this website more or less intensively, most of the time under the name Fontwerk, now under ivo.berlin and gabrowitsch.de. For the first years of the Berliner Typostammtisch, this website also served as the event’s site, but my nice successors managed to built a separate one. Over the years, I was also involved in other web projects, of which most have discontinued in the meantime (e.g. Hauptstadtblog, Zoomfeed, 4270.net, FontFeed, Fankombinat, Slanted). My plan is to keep this site for a few more years and to update it occasionally with whatever comes to mind.

Colophon

Fonts

Where else?

Terms and conditions of use

Content

I do not take over any guarantee for the topicality, correctness, completeness, and the quality of the information supplied on this page. All information is given by me after best knowledge; mistakes are excluded.

I exclude any liability for slightly negligent breaches of duty.

I reserve the right to expressly change individual pieces of content or the entire supply without further notice to complete or to stop the entire online supply for a certain time or forever.

Data security

If there is the possibility for input of personal or business data within the internet supply, the input of such data takes place basically voluntarily by the user.

Copyright

© Ivo Gabrowitsch, 1999–2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ivo Gabrowitsch and ivo.berlin with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Links

This website contains links to websites operated by other parties. Such linked sites are not under my control and I am not responsible for the content available there. Such links do not imply my endorsement of material on any other site, and I disclaim all liability with regard to your access to such linked websites. Access to any other sites linked to this website is at your own risk.

Privacy policy

Responsible party pursuant to data protection laws, in particular the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is Ivo Gabrowitsch.

Your rights as the data subject

You can exercise the following rights at any time using my contact details:

If you have given me consent, you may withdraw it at any time, which will remain in effect in the future. You can contact a supervisory authority with a complaint at any time, e.g. the supervisory authority of the state of your residence or the authority that oversees me as the responsible party. You’ll find a list of supervisory authorities (for the non-public area) with their respective addresses at bund.de.

Collecting general information during a visit to my website

Type and purpose of the processing

When you access my website – i.e. if you do not register or submit information – information of a general nature will be collected automatically. This information (server log files) contains the type of web browser, the operating system used, the domain name of your Internet service provider, your IP address and the like.

It is processed in particular for the following purposes:

I will not use your data to draw conclusions about your person. This type of information will be statistically analysed by me if necessary to optimize my website and its underlying technology.

Legal basis

The processing occurs according to Art. 6 Para. 1 (f) GDPR, based on my legitimate interest in improving the stability and functionality of my website.

Recipients

Recipients of the data may be technical service providers, who work on the operation and maintenance of my website as the processor.

Retention period

The data will be deleted as soon as they are no longer required for the reason they were collected. This is generally the case, after the respective session has ended, for data that are used to make the website available, at the latest 30 days later.

Mandatory or required provision

The provision of the aforementioned personal data is neither legally nor contractually mandatory. Without the IP address however, the service and functionality of my website are not guaranteed. Furthermore, individual services can be unavailable or limited. For this reason, an objection is excluded.

Contact form

Type and purpose of the processing

The data you enter are used for individual communication with you. A valid e-mail address and your name are required for this communication, which serves to organize your inquiry and the respective subsequent reply. Providing additional information is optional.

Legal basis

The processing of the data entered in the contact form occurs on the basis of a legitimate interest (Art. 6 Para. 1 (f) GDPR).

By providing the contact form, my aim is to facilitate an uncomplicated means for you to contact me. The information you enter will be used to process the inquiry and saved for possible follow-up questions.

If you contact me to request an offer, the processing of the information provided in the contact form will occur in order to implement pre-contractual measures (Art. 6 Para. 1 (b) GDPR). Please also note my company’s privacy policy in this case.

Recipients

Recipients of the data may be processors.

Retention period

The data will be deleted no later than 6 months after processing the inquiry.

Provided that we enter into a contract together, we will use the statutory retention periods in the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch) and delete your data according to the respective stipulated deadlines.

Mandatory or required provision

The provision of your personal data is voluntary. However, I can only process your inquiry if you provide me with your name, e-mail address, and the reason for your inquiry.

SSL encryption

To protect the security of your data during transmission, I use state-of-the-art encryption methods (such as SSL) via HTTPS.

Revision of my privacy policy

I reserve the right to amend this privacy policy so that it always complies with current legal requirements or to implement changes to my services in the privacy policy, e.g. when introducing new services. Your next visit will be subject to the new privacy policy.

Questions for the data protection officer

If you have any questions pertaining to data protection, please send us an e-mail or contact the person responsible for data protection in our organization: Ivo Gabrowitsch

The privacy policy was created via the activeMind AG privacy policy generator (Version: #2018-09-24).

Last updated July 11th, 2019.

If you’d like me to advise on your project, speak at your event, or just say hello, please get in touch.