Reporters Without Borders Germany is dedicated to the fight for press freedom worldwide – which is under pressure more than ever: Every year, more critical newspapers around the world are shut down by oppressive regimes, with a record high of over 300 newspapers banned in 2017.

Every newspaper has it’s own recognizable custom house font. For Reporters Without Borders Germany, we recreated the iconic typography of shut down newspapers and gave them to major German newspapers which used them in their issues along with matching topics to bring the banned newspapers back to life stronger than ever.

We chose banned newspapers from different countries, to cover different interests and target groups, to maximize potential public attention.

The Cambodian Daily, Cambodia, banned in 2017.

Özgür Gündem, Kurdish, banned in 2016.

Mawio, Tanzania, banned 2016.

Taraf, Turkish, banned in 2016.

Azadliq, Azerbaijan, banned in 2016.

tuoi tre, Vietnamese, banned in 2018.

Then, we gave the fonts to major German newspapers, again covering different demographic target groups: Die Welt, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, taz, Augsburger Allgemeine. They used the fonts along with matching topics in print and digital to bring the shut down newspapers back to life.

To take it even further, billboards, posters and banners using the fonts directly confronted visiting politicians with the newspapers they tried to shut down.

On our website, there is a growing permanent archive for fonts of shut down newspapers. Anyone can directly use them to spread the message on the streets and on social media.

Together with renown typography experts, we recreated the custom house fonts of six shut down newspapers from around the world:

The Cambodian Daily, Cambodia, banned 2017.

Özgür Gündem, Kurdish, banned 2016.

Mawio, Tanzanian, banned 2016.

Taraf, Turkish, banned 2016.

Azadliq, Azerbaijan, banned 2016.

tuoi tre, Vietnamese, banned 2018.

Then, we gave the fonts to major German newspapers: Die Welt, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, taz, Augsburger Allgemeine. They used the fonts along with matching topics in print and digital to bring the shut down newspapers back to life.

To take it even further, billboards, posters and banners using the fonts directly confront visiting politicians with the newspapers they tried to shut down.

On our website, there is a growing permanent archive for fonts of shut down newspapers. Anyone can download or directly use them to spread the message on the streets and on social media.

Fonts For Freedom launched around the state visit of Turkish president Erdogan in September 2018, with posters, billboards and banners all over Berlin. In total, more than 5 mio. issues of participating newspapers containing the fonts were distributed in print and digital. The campaign sparked a global debate about press freedom, with more than 400 media mentions around the world and 2.7 mio. interactions – downloads, comments, likes and shares. As a result, Fonts For Freedom helped the shut down newspapers to reach far more people than they originally would have, with more than 830 mio. contacts in 132 countries.