March 2024
Preparations are ongoing: In summer semester, I will be teaching at HTW University of Applied Sciences Berlin. Prof Jürgen Huber who is taking a research semester, asked me if I’d be interested in offering a main project. I surely am (thanks, Jürgen)!
The task will be: „Me Inc. – How would my corporate typeface look like if I were a company?“. So which notional enterprises will the students found and how will their corporate typefaces look like? What can a corporate typeface do for a company in the first place? I am curious and looking forward to an intense semester!
February 2024
As useful as a chocolate teapot? For the past few weeks, I have been working on a clock as a Variable Font. People who deal with type design will be aware of the problem: interpolating type works on a linear basis but the clock hand rotates and therefor describes a circle as interpolation path. This is called „Higher Order Interpolation“ (HOI) and Underware described it way better and very insightful back in 2018.
Doomed to linear interpolation, I had to deal with a lot of Intermediate Masters and bigger and smaller challenges (thanks Georg Seifert and Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer of Glyphsapp for useful tipps and Dinamo for FontGauntlet, the brilliant testing tool)! A little fortaste: How many degrees will the short hand turn if the long hand proceeds by one minute? You are right: 0.5° (360/12/60) – on a different position depending on the actual time. And please, keep in mind to make provisions to not flip out if someone wants the hand to be thinner, longer or without rounded corners. (Did somebody dare to suggest a third axis for the seconds? It would drive me crazy!)
For which purpose, you might ask? To be honest, the variable font is kind of a playground but in the end the typeface will be able to translate digital time inputs such as 09:24 or 17:59 into analogue clock icons. This can be very useful for learning the clock … Soon at edufonts.com!
January 2024
January promises an interesting New Year: Currently, there is another custom type project of TypeMates I can help with, and a lovely little icon project together with the most wonderful people of Village One. Also an additional lectureship in the summer semester, and the news that I will be speaking at Berlin Letters Festival this summer, opened up. Feels like winter is almost done, folks! Well, almost …
December 2023
The last Typostammtisch Berlin chapter of the year is usually a quiz. For this year’s Typostammquiz, I had the pleasure to take care of the questions together with Andreas Frohloff and Stefan Pabst. It was so much fun and I learned a lot (especially within the field of calligraphy which is Andreas’ favourite topic). The best thing is: You can also have a guess (if you understand some German), because the quiz is prepared interactively on the Typostammtisch website. Have fun!
November 2023
A project that’s been completed earlier this year is now implemented in more and more touchpoints. Together with and commissioned by Henning Skibbe (Character Type), we have developed a custom typeface family for Vorwerk, a German producer of household appliances with long-standing tradition (Thermomix®, Kobold®). The briefing aimed at a distinct geometric design that is nearly as space efficient as Roboto and comprises the same amount of characters. Thank you Henning, I really enjoyed collaborating over 3 months. Learn more about the project in Character Type’s case study.
October 2023
I’m happy to join co-working space “AHA” in Berlin for some days a week next to working from home. Very much looking forward to exchange ideas with the new office people (hi Ulrike, hi Christian!). I think this step will bring more coincidence and interaction into my daily routine. By the way: in German “aha” means something like “uh-huh” or “I see”. Good vibes.
August/September 2023
Over the last six weeks, I have been working closely with Natalie, Jakob and Nils of TypeMates on a custom type project of theirs. Stay tuned, it will be very visible early next year. Despite my facial expression on the zoom screenshot, it was such a nice collaboration and I really enjoyed working with the team. It gives a lot of insights on new ways of approaching projects, solutions and communication. Thank you, Mates!
July 2023
This month I’d like to share some of my favourite use cases of our Case typeface.
The logo I did for my dear friend and neighbour Asta Volkensfeld is set in Case with customized K. The signet refers to cups and sculptures as well as to Asta’s initials A and V. Make sure to check out her beautiful ceramics and textile art.
The documentary Die Karte der Schönheit (“The Map of Beauty”) explores the beauty of landscapes in economical and political contexts. Case Micro accompanies the viewer throughout the whole film. Highly educative, mind-opening and relaxing to watch (slow TV)!
Find more use cases at Fontwerk.
June 2023
Case 2.0 in cooperation with Ralph du Carrois and Erik Spiekermann has been released at Fontwerk. Our latest take on the typeface system enlarges the weight range (fatfatfat!) and adds Cyrillic, Greek and Vietnamese plus a lovely UniCASE feature to play with. With its 3 families (Case, Case Text and Case Micro), it’s more than suitable for large branding projects. Familarity with a twist, versatile in every condition.
But read more and test the fonts over at Fontwerk …
May 2023
EduFonts.com, a new portal for learning typefaces I was working on during the last months, is launching soon. Browse the BETA version:
