Circular – Fragments of Beauty

Between Naturalness, Terribleness and Sweetness

elementi — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 07:38:32 +0000

Today, next to my morning cup of espresso, is a small opusculum, first printed, it seems, in 1949. It is a small monograph on the Centaur typeface by Bruce Rogers. My friend Chris Wakeling, an excellent English printer, sent it to me. And again, it makes me philosophize about that love of printed letterforms that I still love so much and that has been with me through all my life’s circumstances. It’s such a pleasure to look at these shapes, once so carefully drawn or engraved by hand, or more recently created digitally on a screen. And I still wonder where they came from, what it is that makes them shine so mystically for me. It’s no longer a secret that I draw my Bézier lines inspired by the shapes, curves and lines of the female body. It is something like a game between many factors. In a book about Raffaello, the Italian Renaissance painter, I read about these influences in terms of “Naturalness”, “Terribleness” and “Sweetness” that the artists of those days struggled with, to tend to either one side or the other. And I think it’s always this that shapes our designs. On the one hand, admiration of nature: how it creates “outlines” of forms guided by an inner structure, like the curve of a leaf or, yes, the beautiful sinuous lines of a female body, conditioned in themselves by bone and muscle. On the other hand, there is also a certain will to achieve an ideal form in the sense of geometry. Our eye loves it when things become symmetrical or oval shapes become perfect circles. Because, as often said, it was this striving for perfection that pushed artists to their limits. Bones and muscles, extreme bends and perspective forms were called “Terribleness”; “Sweetness” was the opposite, that is, the willingness to refine the created forms so that they became almost artificial, self-sufficient and praising more the artists than their own origins. And finally, there was “Naturalness”, which can be described as a successful balance between these tendencies. Creating forms that show their original principles, movement, strength and organicity, but without exaggerating. A balance between brutal structure and sweetness.

We wrestle with the structure and pressure with which the pen put its forms on paper, and the will to find in their inner and outer forms something that tends to be geometric, ideal or perfect.

I have always thought that this also applies to the forms of printed letters. When we draw their outlines “artificially”, imitating a calligraphic form once written, we wrestle with the structure and pressure with which the pen put its forms on paper, and the will to find in their inner and outer forms something that tends to be geometric, ideal or perfect. Above you can see some pictures of the process of creating Bézier curves for my font Signer, which is meant for text sizes. For inspiration, I used the beautiful photograph of Marc Lagrange on my desktop background. When I drew the curves of ‘9’, or rather corrected what I found when it was systematically derived from the very thin original shape, I especially liked the connections of the bowls. It reminded me of such shapes as we find in the movement of a shoulder, which lets us see clearly what forces are at work here to bend muscles and incline bones before they form the curves of their surface on the skin. I liked the way the lower part of the hairline enlarges before dipping into the main oval on the right side. But at the same time, almost unconsciously, I became aware of what was happening to the inner shape, the oval enclosed in the eye of the character, the so-called counter. I tried to round it softer, to get it closer to a circle (read also the previous post why). In a word, I was getting dangerously close to the “Sweetness”. The softer and rounder our counterforms become, the more the letter as a whole loses its structure, its stability guided by inner forces. The female body itself is the perfect example of this precarious balance. So when we draw in reality, we are always struggling, once approaching one side and then perhaps returning to the original principle. Yet the human body, at least to me, is the crown of these principles. Because when we create something, we may want it to be similar to ourselves. Credits: Marc Lagrange | Photography

That’s why we (perhaps) love circles

elementi — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 10:26:47 +0000

As promised, I will publish some posts about the ongoing work on Signer Text. However, it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to present the work process in a truly didactic way. It is very difficult even for myself to keep track of what I am doing. The process is so very intuitive and must be based on something almost unconscious. Recently I saw a very interesting documentary about an American writer who once claimed that writing is the division into two parts: the work of a drunk, revised by a sober. I have a feeling that this is quite similar in the process of designing typefaces. The drawing process, which interestingly enough usually makes crucial turns and progress during the night, is revised and slightly corrected in the early morning. Consequently, it is difficult to force oneself to jot down, to photograph ideas in this intuitive, unconscious, “drunken” phase. Nevertheless, I will try to reflect some thoughts and influences that push my letter images in a certain direction rather than another. In creating the Signer Text, I’m not quite sure yet what its destination will be, what I want to express character-wise. Certainly there is the eternal inspiration of the Franklin Gothic to achieve something truly elegant, classic, dynamic, but also stable and solid.

There is the eternal inspiration of the Franklin Gothic to achieve something truly elegant, classic, dynamic, but also stable and solid.

While drawing, I noticed that I seem to be following some symmetry ideas that are particularly evident in Signer. In the capital letter ‘S’, for example, I recognized the symmetry, the balance between left and right on the upper inner form under the “ceiling” of the top turn of the lettering toward the top. This seems to give the letter some stability. So I temporarily added a new intermediate curve point that almost perfectly matched the hidden circle, which of course I only had in my imagination while I was drawing. I added the red circle later to make it easier to understand. Again, I strongly believe that these ideas should not be slavishly followed during the working process, because that would prevent us from getting into that intuitive state of mind. Since the Renaissance, the circle has had a strong meaning. It is also a metaphor for stability, harmonious movement, and even something that, on another level of perception, signifies life itself. The beautiful 19-year-old Natalia Vodianova, photographed by Paolo Roversi, might give us a clue. I put her on my desk while drawing, and as many, many years ago, she still inspires me. The rest is pure imagination… Read also [German and Italian language] Credits: Paolo Roversi | Photography Natalia Vodianova | Model

Is it symmetrical?

elementi — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:09:33 +0000

In the design of a typeface typically there are letters more interesting to do than others. The ones we use to determine a typeface’s style, look or feel and the ones which we might want to neglect for some time. Inevitably yet, sooner or later we have to spend some time drawing also the less interesting ones. And at this point someone may ask, as well: are they really so uninteresting? One of these candidates surely is the minor letter ‘o’. While creating a Sans Serif typeface we may be tempted to construct a circle. At least, even in the serif fonts where stroke widths swell in horizontal we hope that by drawing a quarter part and duplicating it four times we might get the job done. But human eye follow its own rules! Doing so the result is a letter seemingly out of balance, some kind of weird element among others. This depends in part on the direction of reading, as well as on other habits of watching in general.

What makes it so hard creating a well done ‘o’ is exactly that subtlety: making it seem symmetrical while taking care of these optical balance effects.

Even in typefaces which have a non inclined character, on the contrary to the antique Roman characters as Jenson and others, we might find that the inner circle, for example, needs to be inclined nonetheless a little bit. So that the eye while reading is not stopped in the flow of a line. In addition, the bottom curves of the apparently symmetrical ‘o’ behave differently to the upper ones. So, what makes it so hard creating a well done ‘o’ is exactly that subtlety: making it seem symmetrical while taking care of these optical balance effects. And let me assure you: it is a hard one! In part we are relieved of this task in the italic typefaces where by nature we have only a flipped vertical symmetry. And in general the eye is inclined to pardon small divergences more easily. In this typeface called Reflection Italic (later Urbino) I implemented more concise pen characteristics such as tiny edges on its outer curves. This not only helped to make it a more harmonious partner to its quite edgy Roman pendant but makes it more liberal in the choice of how to handle symmetries. In order to get inspired for what regards its reading flow I used Sandro Botticelli’s paintings for he is a true master of movement and lines’ dynamic. Read also [German and Italian language] Painting: Sandro Botticelli | Primavera (detail)

Last Refinements on Threeadvanced Webfont

elementi — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 11:21:49 +0000

A long long story finally seems to come to end. It all began with an ultra thin display typeface called Advanced. Which was influenced by one of my favorite Sans Serif typefaces Franklin Gothic. It had a less pronounced line contrast, sure was way thinner, but still kept some of its elegant color mood. Threeadvanced was developed as an accompanying text face for the web and itself has undergone major modifications and re-versioning over the years.

When you work on a typeface over a longer time period it is curious how it seems to adapt itself to the changing spirit of times. It is a thing inevitable to happen.

In a way it is the font I use to work on after a hard day of labour with a good glass of wine and my favorite music to relax and calm down. When you work on a typeface over a longer time period it is curious how it seems to adapt itself also to the changing spirit of times. Something what we Germans like to call ‘Zeitgeist’. In the beginning it still had some slight remains of typefaces like Meta or even Thesis form the late nineties. Then with the years, specially in the last 2 years, it evolved more and more in the direction of the nowadays popular lot more geometric forms as seen in Montserrat and others. It is a thing inevitable to happen. Threeadvanced (“Version 3”) once had a large variety of fonts for different uses as, for example, to be rendered on screen with sub pixel technique or retina on the other hand. All those experiments were dropped in the end as web is in fast progress and keeping it up with a typeface in continuous refinement process is almost impossible. So I decided to go for one of the blacker versions of this large family in order to use it in a more general way. My Stefan Seifert logotype also is just a simple use of this typeface, no lettering or extra space adjustments. The picture above shows the process of spacing and some ultimate refinements on letters as the ‘a’ which has become slightly more stiff with more geometrical circular inner forms. Photography in the background is by Paolo Roversi. I particularly love to keep some of his sepia colored fashion shoots in the background to inspire myself and to unconsciously stick to some of this typeface’s original “color”. Credits: Paolo Roversi | Photography

La Ruota

elementi — Sun, 20 Aug 2017 06:28:09 +0000

E la mano che reggi sul tuo petto mi riduce al più infimo degli esseri. Mi sembra una ruota che si giri; sempre questo lato torni al di sopra, accingersi a ripetersi.

«Let the show begin | For the last time»
– Talk Talk, The Last Time, 1984

«Never it’s over»
– Talk Talk, Time It’s Time from the album The Colour Of Spring, 1986

Working on Reflection ‘8’

elementi — Sat, 06 May 2017 07:52:15 +0000

When it comes to certain work processes, the evolving of a letter design, as an example, things are really getting complicated to describe, if not almost impossible. So many subtle influences slip into the mind of the designer. Glyph designs, while progressing, influence on each other, much of the drawing results appear necessary to be revised once you started with elaborating their spaces, and so on. I always played with the idea in my mind to describe those kind of things one day, so that others could follow it in a way and maybe even get something out of it for their designs. But as hard as I tried to keep taking screenshots and write little essays about phases of my work, I never succeeded. It is just to complex and the things that you see and feel about a certain curve or Bézier segment to redraw for someone else are hardly reproducible. Find an excerpt of such an attempt and let me, at least, the tiny hope to not have wasted my time entirely. And what is most important: be inspired! I decided to enlarge a little the inner center form of the upper bowl after I had inserted 4 new points to add a longer, almost straight line transitional area between the two bowls instead of connecting them by a single turning point in the middle. One reason was to adapt it better to the very fine and gracile ‘R’ of this character. By the way, I quite consciously left here the path of having exact same hairline thickness relation between numbers and capitals, at least for now. After all, for me its obvious that the strength of the excellent Renaissance fonts does not derive from their precise measures but from the outstanding capability that their creators had in making their forms match in feeling and subtleness, instead. (In addition, due to the generous ‘circles’ they seem to have embedded in their inner and outer lines). Speaking of those ‘nested circles’, the upper bowl on its inside was good enough for me right now, while the outer line on the left side (observing it with the letter image skipped upside down in metrics window) seemed to lack a little bit of blackness. […]
After all, for me its obvious that the strength of the excellent Renaissance fonts does not derive from their precise measures but from the outstanding capability that their creators had in making their forms match in feeling and subtleness, instead.
Added this (fortunately I already had an extra point in this outer curve dividing it into segments as I often do instinctively in the left down leading part in bowls like i.g. in the ‘8’ or ‘g’, before they get attached to the center part of the glyph) I felt that now the (almost) straight stroke connection had some trouble where it flows into the turning swing. This seemed only in part due to the fact that the newly created interim curve segment was too short to allow a smooth attachment, as to the well known problem of digital raster not allowing tangents to be exact on decreasing lengths. So I added some weight by pushing the curve a little bit towards the outside with the help of the direct curve segment tool (clicking and ‘dragging’ the curve in the middle between the points, which is, in fact, better done with the keyboard arrows) shifting both of the belonging tangents towards the inside a little to make them longer. At this point I returned with the view mode to the upright position in metrics window to maintain final control over the letter’s natural proportions. What I surprisingly found then was that, all of the sudden, I had much less dynamical ductus, which was originally caused by a slightly thicker stroke width on the left, right before it turns around in its swing and before entering the more straight part. I did not know at this point if this was a good thing or not. […]

Derive the Italics

elementi — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 11:20:50 +0000

A natural desire once you created a new typeface is to make its accompanying italic version. In the history of typefaces those two separated forms of alphabets have an almost totally different origin. This somehow kept its truth up to today. Both characters ought to make a perfect match but they have clear differences mainly visible in some letters like ‘g’, ‘a’, ‘e’ but also others. When I confront this task usually I begin with trying out a mathematical slanted versions of a font and then elaborate it until it gets its very own nature. This is what I did with Reflection which in the end became Urbino. Yet, I recently stumbled upon some of its intermediate ‘BackUps’ and what struck me most was this ‘g’. I guess I’ve (re)fallen in love with its overall hidden ‘circular’ shapes and its weird form attachments I seem to have felt necessary. Well, a tribute to an old love story which was creating Reflection.

Certe Mani

elementi — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 13:44:59 +0000

Altre invece ne coprono i difetti come una pelle rossastra come proviene da una circolazione irregolare, con uno smalto rosso denso che ci impressiona in quanto si trova su unghie ben poste su delle dita lunghe e molto affilate, i cui movimenti graziosi corrispondono ai suoi piedi fini ma lunghi (per cui, nel suo caso, con molto gusto ne aveva trovati i stivali di pelle scura marone, e il che interponeva nella mia mente l’immagine d’una certa «agilità», a causa d’un altra donna della mia vita: simile a quella, ad esempio, che a certe fanciulle che portano dei pantaloni neri larghi di seta, eleganti, conferisce a loro un’età avanzata impropriata, per via della donna matura che conoscevamo in passato e che li usava portare per motivi di lavoro) leggermente piegati verso l’interno, sembrante accennare ad un certo atteggiamento docile il che aumentava il suo fascino: sostando in bilico tra un’allegra elasticità di donna slanciata vestita alla moda e una certa cupa ma sincera tenerezza da madre. Faceva pensare alla libertà cui deliberatamente doveva aver rinunciata e per cui malinconicamente vedeva perduti certi versi del suo carattere.

Ma forse avevo mal interpretate quelle linee slanciate, inflesse, malinconicamente raccolte, in quanto, come intorno a un punto di centrifuga in un tondo rinascimentale, intendevano solo ad assorbire quelle della bambina rivolta a lei, in un’orbita tutta sua.

O forse questo semplicemente lasciava trapelare i due lati di lei, essere bambina e madre nello stesso tempo. In quanto nell’amore per una donna, in un modo o l’altro, vi rimane sempre un’allegamento allo stato primordiale della vita: l’uomo giovane che nella donna ama sempre in parte una madre, come l’uomo diventato più vecchio vi vorrebbe amare sua propria figlia. Finché si rassegnerà un giorno ad amarla per la vicinanza alla sua morte.

Dolcezza di Forma

elementi — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 11:36:38 +0000

A causa che la vedevo di dietro l’occhio si confondeva un’attimo dal suo stile di vestirsi «da vecchia» come lo si vede qualche volta in certe donne giovani (e neppure i suoi capelli troppo fini non davano segno di non appartenere a una donna vecchia), ma infine con sicurezza scorgeva nella sua dolcezza della forma una gamba giovanile: che quasi «traspirava» attraverso la lana nera (o di un blu scuro) della calza benché essa (o perché!) non lasciava travedere la pelle.

Più tardi l’osservavo seduta con le gambe accavallate e mi chiedevo in quale miracolo consisteva quella dolcezza di forma. Vedevo che in quel tratto che cominiciava dalla punta del dito del piede della gamba sovrapposto, fino al punto sulla sua fronte a metà sulla via verso il ginocchio*, lì dove l’osso leggermente si solleva, cedendo appena percettibilmente la linea del contorno al muscolo dal di dietro (come in certi foglie succose che si sfaldano di mattina su cui contorni nella controluce si distingue prima una parte dello stelo di sotto prima che la sagoma verrà descritta dai margini del lato superiore), descriveva un pezzo di un perfetto cerchio.

D’altra parte il contorno muscolare che sta per iniziare lì, rassomigliava più ad una rettilinea (come del resto corrispondente nella linea opposta dove il muscolo si distaccava teneramente al di sotto) cosicché le due nature delle linee, diverse per la loro origine, qui si avvicinavano invece di distinguersi troppo forte; in quanto da un lato la morbidezza di quella muscolare o carnale ne era in lei salda e prolungata, e dall’altro quella ossea sudescritta per i suoi tratti intermedi circolari (come in quel insieme di dorso di piede e osso frontale) evidenziava un’elastica flessuosità; cosicché per un istinto mi veniva la voglia di lodare il punto iniziale di tale gioco, cioè quel piede carezzevole, e di coprirlo di baci.

*Infatti la sua gamba, non essendo troppo lunga, faceva sì che proporzionalmente le due parti lasciate da quella divisione per lunghezza non erano troppo diseguali (come lo sono nella maggior parte dei casi). E, come spesso descrivo, quel avvicinamento di lunghezza in due parti che tra esse fanno un gioco di rispecchiamento di proporzione è uno dei segni inconfondibile d’un corpo giovane.

Revision of Advanced ‘s’

elementi — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 05:45:31 +0000

Screenshots during the work process on lower case ‘s’ for the Advanced character. Parting form an original form that seemed to me having a good dynamic flow, yet, tended to separate the ‘s’ into two different form zones. The upper one more circular with less dynamic pen stroke then the lower one. I decided to elaborate the lower one instead and make it more symmetric to its upper counter part. Slightly less dynamic but more fashionable elegant. This led over several versions that have broken digital curve harmony and made it necessary to re-adjust many curve segments in order to re-establish correct curve connections and flow. During the whole process the letter is scrupulously observed in flipped position to clearer show vertical symmetry disharmonies. Different letters were inserted to take control over rhythm aspects as bowl widths and letter spacing.