Petra Kapitza, born in Oberndorf, a village in southwest Germany, set up the studio kapitza with her sister Nicole in 2003, in the east end of London. Together they offer picture and pattern fonts and have become highly regarded in the UK and abroad. Petra had initially gone to Britain to study footwear design. Nicole, on a visit, arranged to study graphic design for one year as an exchange student at Camberwell College of the Arts. After finishing the footwear course, Petra also applied to Camberwell College and got accepted on a degree course in graphic design. In 1996, both Petra and Nicole found work in Berlin at a brand new interactive design company called Pixelpark. This experience was very useful in helping Petra later get jobs back in London with MTV, SYZYGY, Oven Digital and the BBC. She was a part of the original team at the launch of BBC News Online. In 2003 the sisters opened their London studio together, focussing on book and exhibition design, but also venturing into large-scale artworks. The silhouette fonts, of people and nature, is an offshoot of such work. The endless possibilities of their suite of minimalist pattern fonts, Geometric, are showcased in the book Geometric, which has brought them wider recognition.