Zvika Rosenberg

Rosenberg, a native of Tel Aviv, was drawn to graphic design and typography from an early age. At just 17, he handwrote an entire Passover Haggadah in calligraphy using a Rapidograph pen. After high school, he enlisted in the IDF and was assigned as a graphic designer at the military printing house, where he was captivated by the linotype machine that cast lead letters.

Following his military service, he began studying graphic design at the Bezalel Academy under Professor Asher Oron, where he specialized in typography. After earning his degree, he went on to design numerous stamps that won awards from the Israel Philatelic Service. With the advent of the Macintosh in 1984, he decided to further specialize in typography, studying at Apple’s “Developer University” and later at Adobe Systems.

He was among the first designers to pioneer the transformation of Hebrew letters into digital fonts. This typographic revolution was made possible through his collaboration with Apple, enabling the company to offer a selection of Hebrew fonts to Macintosh users in Israel. In 1985, he founded Masterfont, which became Israel’s largest font production company. Since then, he has designed hundreds of typefaces and has specialized in creating custom brand fonts for leading companies, including Microsoft (a multilingual font integral to their graphical user interface), BMW Mini, and Harel Insurance.

The excitement returns to me time and time again with each soldier’s font in this project. I feel as though I truly enter the soul of the fallen — I can almost hear them reading the text aloud in their own voice. Delving into each and every letter was a journey in which I could sense the rhythm of the pen strokes, along with the energy poured into the final letters.
The moment when the completed font was presented to the family was indescribably moving — a deeply emotional experience beyond words.