Inspiration – 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

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)

Progress on Threeadvanced Numbers

elementi — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 07:36:20 +0000

Recently my graphic design work keeps me occupied a lot. But still I find some time in the remaining hours to work on Threeadvanced, the webfont I am using for my personal website www.stefanseifert.com. It is inspired by typefaces as Franklin Gothic and some of the more recent Sans Serif characters. So it consists of slightly accentuated stems’ contrast between thick and thin lines and roundings that open up a little at the endings as if created by a pen stroke.

I love the idea of having all kind of hidden circles that are at the basis of the bowls’ design.

Particularly interesting is the numbers’ design. Middle height is slightly increased compared to lowercase letters and they are oldstyle which means they have alternating ascenders and descenders. I love the idea of having all kind of hidden circles that are at the basis of the bowls’ design. Which is kind of a Renaissance classic alike spirit. I also prefer to see it as something a bit old fashioned combining it with Paolo Roversi pictures that have this gloomy and dreamy atmosphere while being sexy and feminine as well. Here we see the boldest set of numbers in work progress which pairs the refinement of Bézier curves to the letters’ spacing. Read also Credits: Paolo Roversi | Photography

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)

Typefaces and Photography

elementi — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 17:23:09 +0000

This comes a little late. But I guess it is never too late to say thank you to one of the greatest fashion photographers in history who has passed away this year. What you see here is a typeface called Next which was part of my researches for Vogue Italy in the very late nineties just before the switch of the millenium. And it clearly breathes the spirit of those times. As a photographer friend of mine uses to say it is not only that a type designer maybe inspired by photography: it is also photography who can take advantage of typographic work opposed to, or better mixed with it. I am sure in this case I couldn’t hardly add something to the brilliance of Peter Lindbergh. Nevertheless, I am proud that my creations of that period were liked by Italian art director Luca Stoppini and later on have been admired by some influencer magazine art director in Germany, as well. The character itself, apart from clearly aiming at futuristic tendencies of that particular time period, was supposed to also keep some of the fashion like classicist taste which we know to find in Bodoni and Didot. The experimental way of interpreting this fact, though, is that hairlines of Next were introduced in other places, for example in parts of their asymmetric serifs. Certainly, a typeface like this today has less if any importance, but it is just nice to remember some of the inspiration that drove both of us. The type designer and the photographer himself. Thank you for this wonderful inspiration and, in general, for your awesome oeuvre of decades, Mr. Lindbergh! Read also [German and Italian language] Credits: Peter Lindbergh | Photography Vogue Italia | Editor

An Eternal Story

elementi — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 19:40:06 +0000

Beauty at its pure state. Marc Lagrange, Belgian photographer signs responsible for this beautiful portrait of a woman. Since I was a young artist in my university years I was fascinated by this juxtaposition of female inspirational beauty and the shapes of letters. It has been an eternal motivation for me to design, to draw, to spend endless hours on shaping those outlines.

It seemed to me the final goal to reunite them with what Marcel Proust meant by the memory of a scent.

They are intended to just reflect something of their eternal wonderful forms. I dreamt of doing a perfume design. As it seemed to me the final goal to reunite them with what Marcel Proust meant by the memory of a scent. ‘G’ is from Ravish character’s ultrathin font version. Credits: Marc Lagrange | Photography

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

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

Memoir Spacing

elementi — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 16:19:21 +0000

A very demanding task, vital for the success of a typeface is that of finding the right spaces for each singular letter. As one can easily imagine the number of possible combinations even in a Roman alphabet is very high. But, what may seem frightening to someone making a quick calculation of that number is quite a daily business for a type designer. For the simple reason that he has got used to it and of course over the time found his methods to deal with it. There are indeed several good methods for this challenge that didn’t change so much over the centuries of making typefaces, I guess. One of them is doubling letters to pairs or creating even higher numbers of copies and put them side by side. I remember the first time seeing something like that in an old book about Frederic W. Goudy, the famous American type designer and printer in the first decades of the past century. He used to print testing sheets of his metal casted letters into large rows of duplicate letters. Doing so, in the first line, does give the type designer an idea of the general room (neglecting left or right side distances) each letter has been given. On the hand this is to avoid a too deep color caused by letters tightened too much, on the other it gives us a more precise control over the inner and outer rhythm of straight lines. In an ideal, admittedly a little too rigorous sense, distances between the two (or three) vertical lines within a letter image should be the same as the one between the last one of one letters and the starting one of its succeeding colleague (remember: for all possible combinations!). By putting, initially, the same letter in a row (at least, two of them) and glancing over them it is easier to detect eventual rhythm mistakes. Having done so and given that the type designer knowing well his creation and therefor being able to center each individual letter image between its (invisible) borders he may then compare rows of different letters among each other. To settle if certain letter designs lack of sufficient space on left and right side or are set up to tight. The next step is that of comparing more thoroughly typical letter combinations or the ones that each designer depending on his individual style and preference (of course being related to his mother language, but this would fill another essay much longer than this one). In my eyes it is also important to concentrate with this on pairings that one particularly is being fond of. What may sound kind of funny, is a design truth for my opinion. Because having fun with this work or let’s even say to fall kind in love with letter pairings and combinations is part of the success story of a typeface. For the creation process is far less theoretic or mathematic as one may suppose. Simply for the fact that it takes long time, asks a lot of patience of the craftsman or a digital designer and in the end is a matter of heart. This is when inspiration comes into the game. And changing it. Personally I try to melt the glyph design process and the letter spacing to one continuous process. Like here in the Memoir ‘sa’ combination I also correct the Béziers many times after the first sketches to accord letters’ rhythm between each other. I try to intuit a certain flow that is able to chain the letter images together. In a way that also lines that cross the general rhythm of a typeface maybe be more easily handled by the human eye to fit into it. It is hard to exactly describe what this means but certainly it is also a matter of the (invisible) white spaces that place between two letters. If you are working on a digital Metrics window you may also add and delete characters, go back and forth doing so to trick the eye a little and try to intuit what happens when they change places. Close the eye a little and concentrate on vertical rhythm only regardless of which letter the consisting straight line are being part of. To be honest, in my eyes, it is kind of a fifty-fifty game. Learn about the methods and get used to them but also trust blindly in your own feelings. In the end we are not talking about reason here, we gain to achieve beauty.

(…) vedevo emergere un ovale bianco, degli occhi neri, degli occhi verdi, non sapevo se fossero gli stessi che mi avevano già deliziato un momento prima, non potevo metterli in rapporto con una data fanciulla ch’io avessi separata dalle altre e riconosciuta. E quest’assenza, nella mia visione, del distacco che avrei presto stabilito fra loro, propagava attraverso il gruppo un ondeggiamento armonioso, la traslazione continua di una bellezza fluida, collettiva e mobile.

– Marcel Proust, All’ombra delle fanciulle in fiore

The Paths of Inspiration

elementi — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 16:54:54 +0000

As I am not drawing my typefaces first with a pencil on paper instead doing them directly on monitor I learned to follow my instincts or let’s call it the paths of Inspiration. This letter form Reflection Small Caps happens to end up with strange asymmetric serifs because something seemed to tell me to do so. When I saw the result it reminded me spontaneously of some of the Renaissance paintings by Leonardo which have as a particular detail a background horizon line that differs in height on the left and right side of the portrayed central figure. Even if we might not agree with some of the mystic theories that have been spun around that curious issue it still seems to be a fact that our brain tends to differently weigh two sides of a same composition. In typeface design subtle details like these can help our letters to get into a natural flow chaining them together for the eyes and following reading direction. But things like these shouldn’t be the result of a thinking process, I believe. They should crystallize out of working process and most of all in those very moments when we tend to forgot our rational intents but blindly follow her path. Read also [German language]