About

Pieter van Rosmalen founded CakeType in 2004 primarily as a boutique to distribute some of his early typefaces. In 2008, Pieter started Bold Monday together with Paul van der Laan. The type foundry’s initial retail collection merged the CakeType library and Paul’s typefaces. However, some of Pieter’s older type designs didn’t really fit the Bold Monday library and remained in “the vault” – not Prince’s legendary vault but just as cool and mysterious. CakeType reopened its online doors in 2022 to serve as a vehicle for those hidden gems. This dedicated space allows them to shine in all their quirky glory.

Pieter van Rosmalen studied advertising and graphic design at Sint Lucas in Boxtel. He started dabbling in type design at a young age and licensed his early fonts through the iconic type foundry GarageFonts in the late nineties. In 2002, Pieter graduated from the postgraduate Type & Media program at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague. After working at various advertising and design firms – Het Hoofdbureau in Amsterdam and Teldesign in The Hague, among others – he decided to go it alone in 2004, when he founded graphic design agency CakeLab and type foundry CakeType. Since 2009, Pieter has mainly focused on typeface design. His work has received several Certificates of Excellence from the Type Directors Club, and he won second prize in the prestigious Granshan Type Design Competition in 2019.

Capibara Kees – the Dutch first name Kees sounds like “case” – was born in the Amazon river delta in Brazil. The dashing dude belongs to the Capibara (or Capybara) species, the largest living rodent on planet earth. In mid-2001, Kees traveled to The Hague to study graphic and type design at KABK, where he met Pieter. Banding together to form a creative powerhouse, Pieter and Kees designed the Capibara typeface and the corresponding specimen “Heer van het gras.” Kees was integral in naming Pieter’s type foundry in 2004 – quite literally, because CakeType is short for CApibara KEes TYPE Foundry. How’s that for a surprise ending? Did you really think this was all about dessert?