New font based on Albert Einstein's handwriting being created through Kickstarter campaign

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.

Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.

Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.

Louise Thomas

Editor

Find out more

A new font is being created that simulates Albert Einstein’s handwriting to let anyone “write like a genius”.

A German typographer has been painstakingly copying from thousands of manuscripts left by the theoretical physicist, who died in 1955, to capture how he recorded his famous equations.

Harald Geisler, from Frankfurt, is attempting to raise $15,000 (£10,000) on Kickstarter so he can dedicate more time to the project and make the font ready to use on PCs, Linux, Macs, tablets and phones by the beginning of next year.

open image in gallery

He previously used the site to make a Sigmund Freud typeface and created another based on his own letter writing called Conspired Lovers.

Speaking in a video on Kickstarter, Mr Geisler said the Einstein project started in 2009 “over a series of coffees” with a dancer, Liz Waterhouse, who has physics degree from Harvard.

“I like to imagine that when one uses Einstein’s handwriting as a font that a spark of his genius potentially could reflect in one’s own work,” he added.

open image in gallery

Mr Geisler said he would like to include symbols needed for mathematical equations in the Einstein font and is taking suggestions from physicists.

To create the typeface, he has been tracing magnified manuscripts using a tablet and digital pen and will create four versions of each letter and symbol to imitate handwriting’s natural variation.

So far, the Kickstarter project has raised almost $12,000 (£8,000) from 477 backers.

It coincides with the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s presentation of the complete theory of general relativity to the Prussian Academy.