Ferdinand Ulrich is a typographer and a design researcher. He studied visual communication at Berlin University of the Arts and at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh (US); he holds a PhD from the University of Reading (UK).

Since 2012 he has been designing research publications and art catalogues for cultural institutions such as the Bauhaus Archive, the Berlin Academy of the Arts or the Kyoto Goethe Institute. He is regularly invited to speak at international conferences and symposiums, he frequently writes for Eye Magazine as well as other journals. His ongoing collaboration with Toshiya Izumo in multi-script typography has received several design awards, including from the New York Art Directors Club, from the International Society of Typographic Designers and from Communication Arts.

Ferdinand Ulrich began his academic career as an associate lecturer at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in 2012, before joining Reading’s Department of Typography as a PhD candidate. His research focus circulates around transitional periods of technology change in type and typography from the beginning of the 20th century onwards; his dissertation on the discourse in early digital type design technologies, supervised by Gerry Leonidas and Sue Walker, earned him a PhD in 2023. The following summer, he continued his research as the recipient of the 2024 Cary Research Fellowship at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Ferdinand Ulrich has previously taught typography and graphic design at FH Salzburg, at UdK Berlin and elsewhere. In the summer of 2026, he was appointed Professor of Typography and Visual Language at the Würzburg Design Department.

Recent talks

Keynote: The emergence of a new community. ATypI 2026, Stanford University, USA, 29 May 2026.

Dematerialized: early digital type. 2026 Fontstand International Typography Conference, Silent Green, Berlin, 11 April 2026.

The letterforms of others: Discourse in New Typography between France and Germany, Symposium: La nouvelle typographie dans les scènes francophones, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, 13 February 2026.

Perspectives on type and typography. 2025 TypoWeek, Polish Japanese Academy of Information Technology, Warsaw, Poland, 8 December 2025.

Pre-PostScript: Schriftgeschichten. Designforum, Hochschule Anhalt, Dessau, 2 July 2025.

Keynote: Digital type from the day before yesterday and tomorrow. Symposium: Automatic Type Design 3, Atelier Nationale de Recherche Typographique (ANRT) Nancy, France, 19 February 2025.

Selected publications

Ulrich, F. P. (submitted for publication). The letterforms of others: discourse in New Typography between France and Germany. In D. Fornari et al. (eds.), La nouvelle typographie dans les scènes francophones (proceedings). ECAL Lausanne. https://la-nouvelle-typographie.info/fr

Ulrich, F. P. (2026). Fançois Rappo: SuperScotch (review). Eye, 28 (110), 76.

Izumo, T. & F. P. Ulrich (2025). Chiachi Chao: Kleisch (review). Eye, 27 (108), 76.

Ulrich, F. P. (2024). Harmony and counterpoint. Eye, 27 (106), 82–93. https://eyemagazine.com/magazine/issue-106

Ulrich, F. P. (2024). Standardised letterforms: some notes on the origins of Isonorm. Easo™ type specimen, (1st edition, 2–9). Neue Foundry. https://www.neue.shop/articles/on-the-origins-of-isonorm

Ulrich, F. P. (2022). Ikarus between the worlds. Foonotes, issue D, 156–173. https://www.lapolice.ch/publications/footnotes-d/

Ulrich, F. P. (2021). Fanfare: the expressive blackletter grotesk from Berlin. In T. Huot-Marchand, J. Knebusch et al. (eds.), Gotico-Antiqua, Proto-Roman Hybrid: 15th century type between gothic and roman (1st edition, 181–208). ANRT Nancy / Poem Editions. https://www.poem-editions.com/library/gotico-antiqua-book