Branding – Fragments of Beauty

Working on Girl Editor for a Balenciaga lettering

elementi — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 11:46:59 +0000

Recently I have been working on a lettering for Balenciaga. I had been inspired by those experimental looking magazine pages Diana Vreeland did in the late sixties for Vogue. Liberman used those extremely elongated semi-classicist headline typefaces even in italic variants. They look quite strange and somewhat unusual to modern eyes but if we look close they are not bare of fascination. Yes, as the word in itself seems to suppose: fashionable. Excentric. At about the same period the clothes of Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga were “en vogue” and many of the editorial pages speak about him and show his couture dresses that are surely not less daring experimental. A couple that matches. From a type design point of view, however, this is somehow hard of an excercise. The name is extremely long, set in an wide character with thin hairlines and harsh stroke contrast. This intrigued me.

Cristóbal Balenciaga · Tailoring Work

In a certain way the great Spanish couture master acted like a type designer himself. With the utmost scruples taking care of the perfect fit, specially there where tailored forms intersect with the female body.

I decided to re-work on my Girl typeface. Some letters were needed to be adapted in size as I left them in the early 2000 years incompleted. I had some beautiful ‘n’ and ‘m’s with subtle details as broken stems and slightly curved straight lines. The ‘a’ was needed to be re-done. I wanted to keep the experimental spirit using large ellipsis as counter forms, but at the same time I surely am type designer enough to give them what someone may call the forms of a “real letter”. Because it is often that you do quite easily a fascinating graphic form which however lacks the fluidness and organic quality which makes those forms fit together in a line. Which enables them to attach one to another, chains them together. A quality which is hardly explainable but comes from a long experience of looking on historic typefaces and semi-calligraphic forms. These are images from a first stage of Girl Editor (re-)design which show some adapted letter forms and the new lowercase ‘a’. There is still a long way to go… Read also
See on Letters (stefanseifert.com) Credits: Henri Cartier-Bresson | Photography (small)

Working on Trussardi Small Caps

elementi — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 07:49:14 +0000

During my researches for a Trussardi brand lettering I developed a special Small Caps version of Reflection typefaces. Here is the metrics window and beautiful #Natalia as an inspiration fountain in the background. A particular task was to create a unique and special small cap ‘u’ which was hard to balance on the line without serifs. It introduces also a new intermediate stroke width between the thick stems’ weight and the ultra crossed hairlines. Which was necessary as, of course, without the serifs the ultra thin lines would not be able to create enough color on its right wing. Another subtle detail you may note here are the differently angled stroke ends which are slanted slightly towards the outside. It takes up a typical characteristic of Reflection as you may also observe in stroke ends of capital ‘T’ and other letters, as well. If you want to know more about my methods to develop small caps variants of typefaces read also [German language] Credits: Paolo Roversi | Photography

All Those Numbers

elementi — Thu, 31 Aug 2017 10:21:35 +0000

Once a professor of mine in university said to me about typeface design: “Did you know that the most difficult task in designing typefaces is that of drawing the numbers?” This remark clearly aimed at pointing out that I was about to touch a field of design that would have its own mysteries and, besides, was definitely not very much supported by the concept of our institute back in those days. In other words some kind of a warning (I laugh) that should point out that I wasn’t very prepared for this task (which was definitely true) and better should leave my hands off before getting into deeper trouble. Well, the troubles I took into account and I definitely had my fair share. Which means I was fighting the rest of my time in university to make type design my favorite branch and bending all their tasks that they gave to me to make them head in that specific direction. And as if this kind of ‘dark’ reminder was an additional incitement buried in the back of my mind, I always find myself focusing a lot on the design of numbers when I am beginning a new typeface. So over the years many of my font creations always had complete sets of numbers while often leaving blank spaces in my font charts, namely of many letters that didn’t interest me very much. In particular, my more experimental creations have stylish numbers sometimes on the brink of readability, I admit. The one above is number ‘8’ of a character called Romantic after a story in Vogue Italy and had numbers consistent of exclusively crossed straight lines and a singular curve shape. It matches the Yohji Yamamoto dress that served to me as an inspirational fountain. Credits: Mario Sorrenti | Photography

A Mirror

elementi — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 16:44:12 +0000

When I was recently working on my personal website relaunch (www.stefanseifert.com) I stumbled casually upon a photo series by Peter Lindbergh for Christian Dior griffe. It shows beautiful Natalia Vodianova in sensual black and white pictures. Something urged me to put them beside my own Christian Dior typeface researches (purely artistic, no commercial benefits for me). And there it was again: the knowledge why, at all, I am designing typefaces. Letters are made for beautiful sensible woman. Their lines reflect those of their bodies. And not only.

It is something magic that connects them both in my eyes. Maybe it’s about sensitiveness or the way the inner nature of forms matches in them. At least, this would explain why in the history of arts they so often served as muses to us.

Read also [German and Italian language] Credits: Peter Lindbergh | Photography Natalia Vodianova | Model

Backwards—Forwards

elementi — Sat, 10 Jun 2017 09:35:51 +0000

Another blast from the past. This is Forward. One of my very first (computer) typefaces. It came out in the times of a Miuccia Prada revolutionizing the concept of fashion just on the break of the new century with weird and witty shapes praised to be the new futurism. It is far from being a “good” typeface in the sense of correctly connected Bézier curves and other things, but it made a perfect stand those times being used by some of the major Italian ad agencies. Among others it ornamented the 2000 Riccardo Gay model agency calendar.

Today we live in a time where throwing out new typefaces in million places over the web has become a normality.

I remember its forms came very spontaneously to me and just as a rockstar maybe, fighting for the rest of his life with his early breaking hit, I always was measured by it by my friends and followers. Today we live in a time where throwing out new typefaces in million places over the web has become a normality, but back in those days it was an awesome and thrilling task to experiment with new alphabet shapes and so it earned its name, I guess.

‘TRU’ Trussardi Lettering

elementi — Sat, 22 Apr 2017 16:21:36 +0000

During the drawing process of Urbino Typeface I enjoyed doing some lettering researches for the classic Trussardi fashion griffe. This is a detail from FontLab Metrics window during the elaboration of the letters ‘R’ and ‘U’. The latter one is a particular challenge in serif typefaces. It has a delicate balance and symmetry between stems. The right one that has to have the part of hairline, yet, cannot be a slim as in other letters specially when not equipped with a full serif. Urbino Typeface is dealing a lot with these subtle contradictions which arise by being a serif typeface on the one hand, yet, having definitely some of the characteristics of a Sans Serif character on the other. Uppercase letters also show something of almost ancient Roman alphabets carved into stone. Urbino which I derived as an Italic variant of Reflection typeface has a particular long story within my type creations. Much time has been dedicated to it over the years and I still love it a lot.

A Singular Character

elementi — Sat, 04 Mar 2017 07:07:16 +0000

This a more experimental character I did for a Ferragamo lettering research. It is named Singular. More than alluding to a style attribute this refers to its attempt to use only one single curve part for constructing all letters’ shapes. In theory this is not really possible because of the many different form conjunctions that tend to be ugly and inconsistent if not differently treated with Bézier curve design. But sometimes we designers love it because it gives a character an overall strict and geometric shape as for as Bodoni once wrote in his fabulous Manuale Tipografico:

Ed è il primo la regolarità. Chi faccia l’analisi dell’Alfabeto d’una qualunque lingua, non solo scorgeravvi de’tratti non dissimili in molte diverse lettere, ma troverà potersi tutte comporre con picciol numero di parti identiche variamente combinate e disposte.

– Giambattista Bodoni, Manuale Tipografico, 1818

The Trouble with the Own Name

elementi — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 06:26:44 +0000

One of the most difficult tasks for a type designer is the design of his own logotype. It is kind of a mystery why the proper name looks so ugly for oneself. I guess many designers all over the world have this impression and I sometimes wonder if Madame Chanel (who might not have been a type designer but undoubtedly a designer) whose name seem so wonderful pretty to us all and is so much admired might have had the same intuition about it, or didn’t she? Or let’s think about Monsieur Christian Dior himself struggling with the appearance of his house’s logotype for the same reason. It is difficult to imagine, yet, for me for both logotypes gain so much just because of the beauty of their letter combinations. However here are some screenshots while working on my own logo reviewing its typeface.

Urbino for Trussardi

elementi — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 08:07:26 +0000

Some screenshots of a development of a Trussardi lettering suggestion. During my collaboration for Trussardi’s stationery I did just for fun some experiments using Urbino typeface for a fine Renaissance orientated brand lettering that could renounce the application of the classic houses’ greyhound symbol. You may note that Bézier curves on the outer lines are kept slanted avoiding to re-construct them in the usual maximal point way. This keeps the letters more dynamic and sober. Bowls were constructed by copying different letters’ parts into glyph window during the drawing. A special focus was on the letter ‘S’ as it is doubled in the logo and attracts the attention first. (As by the way the doubled letters always play an important role in Italian language.) But also other letters as the ‘D’ have particular curve treatment to keep the sign more compact and add a specific italic character to it. During the design of those obviously important letters I also insert many others that have a certain importance for the appearance and over all feeling of a typeface. Spaces are evaluated also in dependence on combinations that may not appear in a lettering, at all.

In a way my way of working is to do a lettering when I am doing a typeface, and doing a typeface when I make a lettering.

J Marc

elementi — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 20:35:43 +0000

When I once visited the beautiful Giambattista Bodoni museum at the Biblioteca Palatina at Parma on one of these overwhelmingly hot Italian summer days I returned home (to my girlfriend’s summer house), the first thing that came to my mind to do was a little pencil scratching of this semi classical lettering in reality more Didot like than truly “Bodoni style”. I combined it with a little idea for a Marc Jacobs branding.