Dynamics – Fragments of Beauty

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)

Signer

elementi — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 11:05:24 +0000

This character in the beginning was named “Allure” as a working title. For I asked myself what is an allure, and how would it influence on a character for the famous Chanel perfume? As almost always I was inspired by some photo shooting by fashion photographer Paolo Roversi and his intriguing — what Italians like to call “inafferrabile” — style. After some first studies the Signer font was developed out of it and elaborated over a longer period of time before getting used also for some brand lettering studies. Credits: Paolo Roversi | Photography

“Rub Down” the Counters

elementi — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 09:37:08 +0000

Sometimes when I get the feeling after a good while of these painstaking minor changes that a curve has a “new born” more precise dynamics but that this “melting down to the form” process has made its weight to low then – in the way that an old punchcutter would do it with his punch – I rub down my form by decreasing its counter form size by very small steps like 99.8% (keep an eye here, too small steps may cause the decrease not to be uniform any longer). Then intuitively going back and forth in the history until I decide when to stop. The somehow analogue technique for the punchcutter was to rub down his punch so that the conical steel rod and with it the countered letter form on top of it got larger in its surface and therefor thicker in its thin strokes. In this way the goal was achieved to leave the design untouched yet make its general appearance a little thicker and stronger in weight. Obviously one may also use the opposite way and widen the outer line of a letter form or combine both of them. Another method would be to use (if you are i.g. in FontLab) the effects options and influence on general letter shape thickness. Important is to be careful and test with minor changes. Afterwards manual corrections are obligatory.

Ravish

elementi — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 11:25:32 +0000

It was quite a long time ago that I did the first design of this ultra thin linear character called Ravish. Its title came from a fashion story by Vogue Italy. Credits: Paolo Roversi | Photography

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.