Type Around the World – Get To Know Austin

In this recurring feature in our “Fonts Having a Moment” series, we’ll be exploring cities around the world through the dual lenses of culture and typography, guided by our friends at Monotype and some of our partner foundries. Join us on this exciting virtual journey! 

This time, get to know Austin, Texas with Michu Benaim Steiner of In-House International. In-House International’s work has recently been featured in Monotype’s 2025 trends report, Re:Vision, Future Typography, in the “Hot & Wet” theme, exploring the role of typography in seeking and championing innovative climate solutions. We’ll also be visiting Austin this weekend to talk about the report’s first theme, “Sound & Vision,” and the resurgence and reinvention of Americana with COLLINS. Hope to see you there!

A portrait of Michu Benaim Steiner.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your foundry.
My name is Michu, and I’m originally from Venezuela. I moved to Austin in 2010 with a freshly launched magazine that was my first foray into proper graphic design. These days, I run In-House International (also known as In-House and weareinhouse), a branding agency that opened in 2011 with a fully remote team. 

For a long time, we worked with clients of every size and across lots of industries, and we were committed to not establishing a recognizable studio style — we’re big believers that brands need to look like themselves. But even as we made very different styles of design and brand work for very different clients, offering custom typefaces was one way we stood out.

We launched the foundry early in the pandemic — egged on by our fearless partner Rodrigo Fuenzalida at fragTYPE — partly to make something in our own voice. Our first release, Ragtag, was a nod to our scattered creative team. Since then, all our type releases have started from what we’re thinking about, what we’re paying attention to, and what vibe we want to put into the world. We create display types that tell a story. Many of them, like Troptical, Broker, and Brinca, push the technical possibilities of type in some way.

Zanco is a variable font by In-House International. Read more and see more examples of their work in the Hot & Wet theme in the Re:Vision, Future Typography type trends report.

The foundry is part of the branding agency. And as In-House has shifted its focus to work in climate tech and clients whose work supports decarbonization, our typefaces picked up on what we see there. There’s a huge disconnect between the urgent need to shift gears and the industry’s approach to engaging with the public. There’s very little joy and delight in the climate space. So we’ve been creating what we feel is missing and offering it to designers to use for their own work. 

2. Tell us about your city. What do you love about it? What’s distinctive about it?
Austin can be disarmingly friendly. It’s a sunny place and though it’s the capital of Texas, there’s a welcoming vibe. It was something that shocked me when I moved here: not just the smiles, but the ease and openness of the people around you. 

Downtown Austin, TX.

The weather has something to do with that (even the endless and very hot summers). There’s lots of parks, public courts, and city pools. And lots of bars, restaurants, and music venues with outdoor spaces. Live music is a draw. The city feels lively and social. 

And, fortunately, there are many really amazing designers who’ve made an art form of designing the branding, materials, spaces, and every detail of restaurants, hotels, venues, bars, theaters, and third places. There’s merch and signage and a vibe everywhere you go. Which I suspect encourages friendliness. It’s easier to be friendly when you feel welcome. 

The Moody Amphitheater is a year-round destination for live events, located downtown in an 11-acre park.

And speaking of being welcoming, Austin has developed a hospitality and restaurant scene that’s become something of a reference — my studio partner Alex, who lives in Barcelona, always talks about how designed every detail is and how it seems like all bars and restaurants have merch. And designers here go hard on brand applications and packaging. I think that visual culture has made Austin-built brands into attractive exports.

3. Where would you take someone visiting your city for the first time to explore its creative heart? 
Austin has a reputation for being an “experiences” city, and that shows up in creativity and culture as well. To me, Austin’s creative strengths are time-bound, as much as they are about location. So there’s less of a single creative heart and more clusters with their own heartbeats (and the many, many festivals that activate them!) 

The Contemporary Austin - Jones Center.

The city’s famous for live music. Downtown(ish), there’s the Elephant Room, the Paramount and State Theatres, and Austin City Limits Live, plus The Contemporary Austin at the Jones Center, which is an art museum, but they also have programming on their rooftop.

There’s also the whole Red River Cultural District, with its back-to-back venues active year-round, but with a whole different level of buzzing during festivals like SXSW and ACL. Beyond music, there’s Fusebox, which brings world-class live performances that are hard to categorize and aren’t fixed to a particular venue. Instead, they partner with co-presenters like Texas Performing Arts and locations around the city. I’ll go to anything Fusebox puts on, frankly. 

The crowd at Fusebox Explosioncita, a collaborative performance between an electronic band and experimental puppetry art collective.

For Visual Arts, I head to East Austin, particularly around Springdale Road. There’s MASS Gallery, Springdale General, Canopy, the Museum of Human Achievement, grayDUCK Gallery, Women & Their Work, and Co-Lab Projects, just to name a few.

An installation at MASS Gallery.

And the University of Texas at Austin is home to lots of museums and institutions, including the Blanton Museum of Art, the Visual Arts Center, and the Harry Ransom Center with its amazing archives. 

The Visual Arts Center.

Speaking of archives: there’s lots of writerly and readerly activity in town as well. BookPeople is a classic. Over the past couple of years, we’ve gotten a lot of new bookshops. Personal favorites include First Light Books, Black Pearl Books, and Vintage Bookstore and Wine Bar.

Inside Vintage Bookstore and Wine Bar.

4. What’s a typeface that you think represents the spirit of your city and why?

This question is wicked! I may have at one point opened up a spreadsheet to inventory and group the dominant Austin-y fonts. But from the gut, I think neon signage is a great medium that’s representative of Austin’s spirit; welcoming, loud, irreverent, charming, fun-loving.

Neon signage lights up the night.

And those come in three cheery flavors: chunky industrial sans (sometimes embellished with the tiniest little spurs), swashy cursive, and what I’ll call the vaguely-retro “other.” The spirit of Austin is neon because it’s fun, approachable, and buzzy.

A classic Austin neon sign at The Long Goodbye.