2018 Print & Publishing

FONTS FOR FREEDOM

Short List
TitleFONTS FOR FREEDOM
BrandREPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS
Product/ServiceFREEDOM OF PRESS
Category B02. Innovative Use of Print
Entrant SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Munich, GERMANY
Idea Creation SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Munich, GERMANY
Media Placement MEDIAPLUS Munich, GERMANY
PR ACHTUNG! Hamburg, GERMANY
Production PLAN.NET Munich, GERMANY
Production 2 INSTANT WAVES Berlin, GERMANY
Production 3 SUPREME MUSIC Hamburg, GERMANY
Production 4 NEVEREST Hamburg, GERMANY
Additional Company BBOX TYPE Berlin, GERMANY
Additional Company 2 STUDIO HEU.LAND Munich, GERMANY
Credits
Name Company Position
Alexander Schill SERVICEPLAN GROUP Global Chief Creative Officer
Leif Johannsen SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Managing Director Art
Patrick Matthiensen SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Managing Director Text
Soen Becker SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Creative Director Art
Eduard Hoerner SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Creative Director Text
Sarah Gstrein SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Art Director
Mojca Zavolovsek SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Art Director
Henrik Claus SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Texter
Lennard Bahr SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Account Manager
Dennis Fritz SERVICEPLAN GROUP Senior Motion Designer
Anja Meiners bBox Type Designer
Ralph du Carrois bBox Type Designer
Katrin Habermann Neverest Producer
Jonas Binder MEDIAPLUS GERMANY Senior Consultant & Planner
Sofia Hiestermann achtung! Senior Account Manager
Lena Marg achtung! Account Manager Press
Claudia Rienhoff achtung! Account Director Press
Marcus Maczey PLAN.NET GERMANY Managing Director
Marlene Ulmer PLAN.NET GERMANY Account Manager
Richard Wegele PLAN.NET GERMANY Creative Director Art
Tammy Jajes PLAN.NET GERMANY Art Director

Cultural/Context information for the jury

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. Together with typography experts, we recreated the custom house fonts of six shut down newspapers from around the world. Then, we gave the fonts to major German newspapers who used them in their issue along with matching articles, bringing the banned newspapers back to life stronger than ever. To take the campaign 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 could directly use them to spread the message on the streets and on social media.

Translation.

Selected Articles DIE WELT Today we are Taraf. The Turkish government has closed the liberal daily. On the occasion of Erdogan's state visit, the WELT title page appears in the "Taraf" font. While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is received by the German Chancellor and President in Berlin, 174 journalists are in prison in Turkey. This is significantly more than at the time of the release of WELT correspondent Deniz Yücel in February this year - and far more than in any other country in the world. Detention of journalists is a method to destroy the freedom of the press. Another is to ban the media and force them to close. In order not to let these media fall into oblivion, the organization Reporters Without Borders launches the initiative "Fonts for Freedom" during Erdogan's visit to Germany. We support this action for freedom of speech and opinion. Therefore WELT appears on the title page in the font of "Taraf", a liberal Turkish newspaper founded by journalist Ahmet Altan in 2007. Like observers in Europe, the Taraf initially welcomed Erdogan's steps to limit the political influence of the armed forces. But more and more the paper turned into a forum for liberal critics of the head of government. After the coup attempt in July 2016, the "Taraf", like many other media, was banned by emergency decree. Ahmet Altan and his brother, the intellectual Mehmet Altan, were arrested. Both were taken to the high security prison Silivri near Istanbul, where Deniz Yücel was also imprisoned. While Mehmet Altan has meanwhile been released, Ahmet Altan was sentenced to life imprisonment in February. His imprisonment as well as the ban on his newspaper show how much the government in Turkey fears wise citizens. We also want to remind you of this today with our title page. SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG A sign of freedom of the press Why newspapers are changing their fonts In 2018, more than 150 journalists were arrested worldwide and over 140 media organizations, including many daily newspapers, were censored or completely closed. In order to sensitize the public to the issue of press freedom, the network "Reporters Without Borders" initiated the project "Fonts for Freedom": German newspapers publish individual pages - pages like these - once in the font of an affected newspaper. A conversation with the managing director of "Reporters without Borders", Christian Mihr. SZ: Mr. Mihr, what is the idea behind the "Fonts for Freedom" campaign? Christian Mihr: We keep trying to present situations and developments beyond the abstract figures that exist about imprisoned journalists or media under pressure. One idea that came up in a conversation with the agency was that we wanted to reconstruct the fonts of closed media from very different parts of the world and thus set an example for freedom of the press. They also launched the campaign on the occasion of the state visit of Turkish President Erdogan at the end of September and had mobile posters with the lettering produced and erected during his presence in Berlin. We wanted to remind the German public who was coming. Because Erdogan is from view of reporters without borders an enemy of the press liberty, as such we put it already two years ago on our list. But we also wanted to make a conscious statement in Turkey. "We want to defend a human right." How did Turkey react to this? Turkish media reported on the action, the daily newspapers Cumhuriyet and Hürriyet wrote about it, partly on their front pages. Even the Sabah newspaper, a government-related medium, has been involved with the campaign. Criticism from journalists in Turkey is that after the release of Deniz Yücel and Mesale Tolu, what is happening in Turkey could be forgotten internationally. "Fonts for Freedom" is a symbol that we are looking further ahead. The world and the taz have already expressed this solidarity in one of their editions. Do international media also show interest in the initiative? So far we have not pushed this, because our immediate reason was the Erdogan visit. However, I do not want to rule out the possibility of a wider circle. After all, it should be a permanent project and not a one-off campaign. The reconstructed typefaces do not only come from Turkish newspapers. Also media from Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Tanzania are affected by censorship. What does a supporter of your campaign decide, which font he or she chooses for which purpose? Whether one uses the fonts of Taraf or Özgür Gündem because one supports a left-liberal line is left to one's own interpretation. It is important to know that "Reporters Without Borders" does not defend certain contents, neither left nor right. We want to defend freedom of the press as a human right. The SZ uses the typeface of the newspaper Taraf. What is the story behind this name? Taraf has been a liberal newspaper in Turkey, also liberal towards what the AKP did, the party of Erdogan. Until he took office as head of state, the AKP certainly stood for openness and liberalisation in many areas of Turkey. Unfortunately, this has been a tragic development. Taraf was then banned a few weeks after the coup attempt at the end of July 2016 because it was accused of having links to the Gülen movement, which in principle cannot be proven. As in the vast majority of cases. What happened to the workforce after the ban? Editor-in-chief Ahmet Altan was sentenced to life imprisonment in the spring of this year. Due to his journalistic activities as editor-in-chief, he was accused of involvement in the coup attempt. This is a tragic case because Altan is 68 years old and because life imprisonment is a sentence of unbelievable brutality: Is it possible to take part in the campaign for freedom of the press as a private person? On the project's website we offer the reconstructed fonts, which anyone can download and use for word processing or social media.