Hello,
my name is Jens.
Jens Kutilek. That’s an unlikely combination of a Scandinavian first name and a Czech last name. But I’m German and live in Berlin. A graphic designer by trade, my field of expertise is font technology and typeface design. I work as type engineer at LucasFonts.
If you find any of my free fonts or scripts useful, you may consider buying me a coffee through the ‘Tip Me’ button at the bottom of the page.
Fonts
Some typefaces that I have designed are:
- FF Uberhand, 2008—2017, a typeface based on my handwriting
- FF Hertz, 2012—2015, a workhorse text typeface family
- Sudo, 2009—, a typeface for programming and command line use
- Comic Jens, 2007–2008, the precursor of FF Uberhand
Articles
- Reviving the IBM Selectric Composer Fonts – How I made a digitization of the Univers type style from the IBM Selectric Composer, but had to brush up my maths first. (2023)
- Normschrift – A variable font based on the ISO 3098 lettering standard. (2017)
Code
You can find some of my font-related scripts and programs on GitHub. Most of them can also be installed through the respective plugin managers in Glyphs and RoboFont.
- Curve Equalizer, a RoboFont extension to adjust Bézier handles
- FontForgeImport, an importer for FontForge (SFD) files in Glyphs.
- Master Grid, per-master grids for Glyphs.
- Red Arrow, an outline quality checker for Glyphs and RoboFont
- RoboChrome, a RoboFont extension for editing color fonts
- Save to Git, save Glyphs file changes and commit them to git at the same time.
- Scrawl, TypeCooker-style drawing for Glyphs
Meet me in person
If you’re in Berlin, you can regularly find me at the Typo† design conference and at the Typostammtisch. Apart from that, I also travel quite a lot to typography events like the ATypI conference, TypoDay† or Robothon. Well, at least you could before I had kids, and before the Corona pandemic happened.
Social networks
You can find me on Mastodon. I also have pro-forma accounts on Twitter and Facebook, but don’t bother.
Essays
PDFs of some essays I wrote at university, in German of course. Please mind the historical perspective in any tech-related topics.
- Dokumentation zu meiner Diplomarbeit (2005)
- Die Sex Pistols und die Situationistische Theorie (2004)
- Projekt: Überarbeitung einer Buchschrift (2003)
- Design in Japan – gestern und heute (2001)
- Design in Japan – Zeitleiste (2001)
- The Searchers/Der Schwarze Falke_ Symbolik vor dem mythologischen Hintergrund des Wilden Westens (2000)
- Außer Atem: Musik- und Geräuschdramaturgie in der Nouvelle Vague (1999)