About Grilli Type

About us

Noël Leu and Thierry Blancpain founded Grilli Type in Switzerland in late 2009 as a collaborative avenue for working with other designers. Although the foundry is based in Lucerne, we’re active on a global scale. Thierry now lives in New York City, and Noël travels extensively, ricocheting between East Asia, North America, and Europe. The studio now numbers eight, with colleagues dispersed across the globe.

But just because we’re Swiss doesn’t mean we’re neutral. We make type with a point of view, type that conveys meaning beyond the words it spells out. It also transcends technical excellence, which we consider a given—after all, if our type didn’t read and perform well in a wide range of challenging environments, we wouldn’t be doing our job. What matters to us is this: What story does a typeface tell? What kind of personality does it have?

Type may be our main gig, but it’s far from our only one. We’re graphic designers by training and temperament who happen to run a type foundry. The relationships we’ve forged with other designers are collaborations in the truest sense of the word. They’re essential to our mission and inform our desire to produce useful type. That’s why we make minisites for our typefaces. We want to show them in action, in context—to give them a voice let them tell a compelling story in their own words.

Services
Besides offering retail typefaces, we’re also a service provider. Our Commissions section unspools a highlight reel of sorts, showcasing a constellation of selected and diverse projects. From customizing our existing typefaces to producing language extensions to drawing custom families for global brands to creating original wordmarks, we develop wide-ranging, type-focused projects tailored to our clients’ precise specifications.
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People

Our team
  • Noël Leu
    Noël co-founded GT while studying graphic design in Bern, Switzerland. He is now traveling frequently for inspiration and to give lectures around the globe. He designed multiple typefaces with GT and supports our designers for their future releases. He lives in beautiful Lucerne, Switzerland.
  • Thierry Blancpain
    Thierry co-founded Grilli Type while studying at the University of the Arts Bern. In order of preference he likes his dog (Barley) and cooking. When not being busy with one of those two things, he reads Wikipedia articles about the Spanish Inquisition or the Oregon Trail. He moved to New York City in 2016.
    → Website
  • Reto Moser
    Reto lives and works in the beautiful city of Bern, Switzerland. He studied graphic design at the University of the Arts Bern and joined Grilli Type as senior type designer in 2015. Aside from solving Rubik’s cubes (for fun!), he’s often swimming in the local river, the Aare, and cycling up and down the mountains of the Bernese Alps.
    → Website
  • Tobias Rechsteiner
    Tobias studied graphic design at the University of the Arts in Bern and holds a Master of Business Administration MBA. In 2015 he moved to Berlin, Germany and co-founded a digital consultancy in Basel, Switzerland. He joined GT as account director in 2018. When not commuting between Switzerland and Germany, he enjoys hanging from boulder holds and reading fiction.
    → Website
  • Katja Schimmel
    Katja received her master’s degree from the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague, in 2018. She joined Grilli Type as a type designer in 2020 and is currently living in Berlin, Germany. She gets her sense of humor from her dad, likes science-fiction books by Liu Cixin, and being outdoors.
    → Website
  • Nathalia Pavón
    Born and raised in Mexico, Nathalia studied advertising and marketing communications at FIT in New York. In 2021 she left her office job to travel around while working from her laptop and joined the team in 2022. Currently based in Mexico City, she holds the position of Operations and Brand Manager at Grilli Type. During her free time she likes to read, participate in random dance lessons and drink bobba tea.
  • Lorenzo Poderini
    In 2022 Lorenzo left his sunny Italy for the dark but vibrant Berlin. He holds a degree in visual communication and has been fascinated by letters since his early teens, practicing (and getting into trouble with) graffiti. After a few years working as a graphic designer, Lorenzo joined Grilli Type in 2023 first as an intern, then as a junior type designer. He is obsessed with music and discovering new artists, loves wine, and cats.
    → Website
  • Cheryl Santos
    Cheryl is a Mexican graphic designer, writer, and editor. She worked in several design studios in Mexico City before joining i-D Magazine’s global team, where she served as editorial director of the Mexican edition of the magazine for five years. In 2023 she joined the lovely team of Grilli Type as customer support. She hates tote bags, and when not watching anime, she enjoys visiting art galleries, studying Korean, and running her clothing brand, Sauna.
  • Sasha Fominskaya
    Sasha grew up in the Far East of Russia (not Vladivostok). After a long stint in Beijing, she moved to Brooklyn where she joined Grilli Type as a senior graphic designer in 2024. When not working, she likes walking everywhere she can, drinking too much coffee, and looking at art. She has a love-hate relationship with online shopping, small press publications, and her phone.
    → Website
  • Jules Janssen
    Jules is a Dutch graphic designer who graduated in 2022 from the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague. After spending some time DTP-ing supermarket brochures—an activity he ironically enjoyed—he joined Grilli Type as a graphic designer in 2024. When not behind the screen, Jules gets lost on his sturdy bike while consuming German pastry classics like Quarktaschen or Berliner Pfannkuchens.
    → Website
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Typefaces released by
  • Thierry Blancpain
    • GT Maru
    Brooklyn, USA
    → Website
  • Dominik Huber
    • GT Planar
    • GT Pressura
    • GT Sectra
    Zürich, Switzerland
    → Website
  • Marc Kappeler
    • GT Sectra
    • GT Pressura
    Zürich, Switzerland
    → Website
  • Rafael Koch
    • GT Cinetype
    Zürich, Switzerland
    → Website
  • Noël Leu
    • GT Super
    • GT Walsheim
    • GT America
    • GT Sectra
    Luzern, Switzerland
  • Reto Moser
    • GT Alpina
    • GT Zirkon
    • GT Eesti
    • GT Haptik
    Bern, Switzerland
    → Website
  • Mauro Paolozzi
    • GT Cinetype
    Zürich, Switzerland
    → Website
  • Tobias Rechsteiner
    • GT Zirkon
    • GT Haptik
    Berlin, Germany
    → Website
Past and present collaborators