Founders Grotesk was initially designed for headlines, but upon its first outing—in a newspaper—it was used at text sizes and performed rather poorly. The lighter weights were serviceable at best, but far from ideal. The bolder weights veer pretty close to disaster, almost clogging up completely. Perhaps with a bit of letterspacing and better printing it would only just be passable.

When Francesco Franci used Founders Grotesk for his wonderful redesign of IL the same problem surfaced: it was simply failing at text sizes with sub-optimal printing conditions. After discussing our options we decided the best fix was to make a text version of Founders Grotesk.

I revisited the source material for Founders Grotesk to seek guidance from the appropriate text styles. The spacing is looser, the letterforms are slightly wider, the details are more open and exaggerated.

Almost everything that was too odd or “anachronistic” for the headline styles, I could put back into the Text: especially the 5! At smaller text sizes these details calm down and help to service the whole. Now, thankfully, Founders Grotesk Text fixes the problems Founders Grotesk has at small sizes.

Overall, Founders Grotesk Text maintains the same lineage and feel as the rest of the family, but works best at text sizes. As the typography of IL demonstrates, all members of the Founders Grotesk family can now work harmoniously, performing their various typographic roles: punchy headlines, delicate pull quotes, legible body copy and robust captions.

Version history
V1.0 – Initial release version; 2013.01

Latin-1 Support
Albanian, Danish, Dutch, English, Faroese, Finnish, Flemish, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Malay, Norwegian, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog,

Latin Extended-A Support
Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Bosnian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Esperanto, Estonian, Fijian, French, Frisian, Greenlandic, Hawaiian, Hungarian, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Māori, Polish, Provençal, Rhaeto-Romanic, Romanian, Moldavian, Romany, Sámi (Inari), Sámi (Luli), Sámi (Northern), Sámi (Southern), Samoan, Slovak, Slovenian, Sorbian, Turkish, Welsh

Supported ISO codepages
8859-1 Latin 1 (West European)
8859-2 Latin 2 (Central European)
8859-3 Latin 3 (South European)
8859-4 Latin 4 (Baltic)
8859-9 Latin 5 (Turkish)
8859-10 Latin 6 (Scandinavian)
8859-13 Latin 7 (Baltic 2)
8859-15 Latin 9
8859-16 Latin 10

Taste Test If you purchase a single weight (or more) of this typeface, then return later to buy the complete family, we will credit you the amount of the original sale.

Klim Type Foundry Font Software End User Licence Agreement
version 2.0, May 2010

1. This End User Licence Agreement (“Agreement”) is entered into between Klim Type Foundry (“Klim”) and the person to whom the Font Software is made available (“you”). You agree to be bound by the terms of this Agreement by purchasing, accessing, installing or otherwise using the Font Software. If you do not agree to the terms of this Agreement, do not purchase, access, install or otherwise use the Font Software. “Font Software” means the digital typeface software made available to you by Klim, the font design embedded within the Font Software, any artwork, typeface, bitmaps or similar graphics created by the Font Software, any media, printed materials, electronic documentation, updates, upgrades, add-on components, or any other material that may be associated with the Font Software now or in the future.

2. Subject to you complying with all of the terms of this Agreement, and upon payment in full of the licence fee(s), Klim agrees to grant you a revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to install and use the Font Software for your Personal or Internal Business Use and in accordance with this Agreement. “Personal or Internal Business Use” means use of the Font Software for your personal or internal business purposes and, unless otherwise specified in this Agreement, does not include the commercial distribution or use of the Font Software, or use of the Font Software in any commercial Products (in each case, “commercial” includes distribution or use for value or otherwise).

For the purposes of this Agreement, “Products” are any goods whatsoever where a material portion of the value or appeal of those goods may be attributed to the Font Software, including its artistic or graphical merit, such as a set of house numbers or alphabetic stamps, rather than the literary content or other characteristic of the goods, such as with a magazine or book cover.

If your proposed use of the Font Software is not explicitly allowed under this Agreement or you are unsure whether your use of the Font Software is permitted under this Agreement, please contact Klim. Your failure to contact Klim for approval of the use, or the lack of a specific prohibition on use in this Agreement, will not be interpreted or deemed a waiver or permissible use of any kind.

3. The licence granted to you under this Agreement includes use of the Font Software by members of your immediate household (in the case of Personal Use) and your employees, officers, directors and agents (in the case of Internal Business Use) (together, the “Authorised Persons”). You must procure that the Authorised Persons agree to, and abide by, the terms of this Agreement. Where you are a design or similar agency, or are purchasing this licence on behalf of another entity, you must draw the ultimate end user’s attention to the existence of, and possible need for, this licence.

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6. You must not, and you must procure that the Authorised Persons do not, at any time: a) sell, licence, sub-licence, assign, rent, lend or transfer the Font Software or the right to use the Font Software to any third party; b) copy, translate, adapt, modify, alter, decompile, disassemble or otherwise reverse engineer (save only to the extent that such reverse engineering is allowed at law) or create any derivative work of the Font Software in whole or in part, or allow any other person to do so; c) use the Font Software in any manner that breaches this Agreement or any applicable law or regulatory requirement (including export laws) in any place of use; d) use the Font Software to create or distribute any electronic document, graphic or other matter in which the Font Software, or any part thereof, is embedded in a manner or format that permits editing, alterations, enhancements, modifications, or extraction of such Font Software.

Notwithstanding the above, you may: a) make one (1) copy of the Font Software for back-up purposes only, provided you do not lend, rent, sell or otherwise transmit the copy to any third party; b) make modifications to the Font Software provided that you obtain Klim’s prior written consent, comply with any conditions imposed by Klim relating to the modifications, agree that such modifications will become the exclusive property of Klim and that you will not sell, lend or otherwise transmit such modifications to any third party.

7. If absolutely necessary, a copy of the Font Software embedded in an electronic document may be sent to a commercial printer or service bureau for use by the printer or service bureau for preparing the document, provided that the printer or service bureau agrees to destroy any and all copies of the Font Software upon completion of its work. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you shall ensure that wherever possible such transmission of the Font Software is by way of a “print/preview” PDF document.

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9. The Font Software is provided “as is” and without any warranty or representation of any kind, except as may be required by law. Klim, to the fullest extent permitted by law, specifically disclaims any and all warranties, representations or conditions, express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including (without limitation) any implied warranty or condition of merchantability, non-infringement or fitness for a particular purpose, or that the use of the Font Software will comply with the applicable laws and relevant regulatory requirements in any place of use. Klim does not warrant that the use of the Font Software will be uninterrupted or error-free, that the Font Software will be defect-free, or that any defect will be correctable.

10. In no circumstances will Klim be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special or exemplary damages (including, but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, savings or information, or business interruption) under any cause of action arising out of the use of, or the inability to use, the Font Software, irrespective of whether Klim has been advised of the possibility of such damage. You agree that Klim’s maximum liability in respect of any damages, costs, expenses or any other claims whatsoever arising out of or in connection with this Agreement, whether in contract, tort or otherwise, will be limited, at Klim’s sole discretion, to the replacement of Font Software or refund of the licence fee(s) paid by you for the Font Software.

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Upon termination of this Agreement, all rights granted to you under this Agreement will terminate, and you must immediately deliver to Klim all copies of the Font Software in whatever form possessed by you or under your control or in the possession or control of any Authorised Person.

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16. All inquiries may be sent via e-mail to kris@klim.co.nz. The Klim Type Foundry website is located atwww.klim.co.nz.