Shift – 2024

Projects MA TYPE DESIGN

Pauline Heppeler – Shift – 2024

Shift is a type family consisting of four pairs of roman and italic ranging from sans to serif styles and from medium to light weight. Exploring the space between a traditional “super-family” and a font-pairing, the projects’ starting point is the notion of voice and the idea of conversation between different typestyles. Through breaking up the binary thinking of this or that in the weight axis, the pairs of sans and serif are put into context with each other through exchanging straightforwardness with richness in detail and vice versa. The extended family aims to put things together that are reacting to each other but ultimately their own idea of something highlighting the importance of negotiating agreement and disagreement.

Diploma project (2024)

Students
Pauline Heppeler
Prix
Prix Tremplin × ECAL × Fondation Leenards
Mention
Excellent
Shift_ECAL_HeppelerPauline3.jpg

Specimen

Specimen

Specimen

Specimen

1/4
Shift_ECAL_HeppelerPauline8.jpg
Exhibition
Shift_ECAL_HeppelerPauline6.jpg
Exhibition

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Ruslan Abbas – Sekular

MA TYPE DESIGN

Ruslan Abbas – Sekular

by Ruslan Abbas

Sekular is a variable display typeface rooted in Gothic Cursive, the late-medieval script of merchants, notaries, accountants, and chancelleries. Rather than treating it as a historical revival, the project reactivates its logic for the present: an age of billionaires, platforms, rent extraction, and techno-feudal infrastructures. Developed through drawing, interpolation, typographic research, and newspaper-specimen design, Sekular connects a script born from the weakening of feudal literacy monopolies to today's new forms of economic enclosure. It is not a revival, but a reflection on power, writing, and transition.
Kriszta Bolcsik – TYPE BETWEEN RESOLUTIONS

MA TYPE DESIGN

Kriszta Bolcsik – TYPE BETWEEN RESOLUTIONS

by Kriszta Bolcsik

The visual language of 9-pin dot matrix printing is not obsolete but unresolved. TYPE BETWEEN RESOLUTIONS emerges from its mechanical output logic, focusing on the structure and behaviour of draft (SSL) printing. This project explores how these low-resolution, mechanically produced forms can inform contemporary type design. It combines historical research with practical experimentation, including the development of custom tools to generate and print glyphs. Through this process, TYPE BETWEEN RESOLUTIONS investigates questions of legibility, rhythm, and system-based construction, aiming to produce a typeface that translates the constraints of obsolete technologies into a contemporary typographic language.
Orlando Brunner – Kadenz Grotesk

MA TYPE DESIGN

Orlando Brunner – Kadenz Grotesk

by Orlando Brunner

Kadenz Grotesk explores the aspect of rhythm and how this influences how a typeface is perceived once set in text. Based on research conducted to follow-up on the written thesis, this project examines various interpretations of typographic rhythm and compares them to understand their impact on the appearance of text and on font design choices. Using the grotesque style as basis, the results of this research are translated into design practice, ultimately leading to the production of one typeface in four distinct styles: Optical, Metric, Syncope and Mono. Each style reflects a different approach to rhythm, and provides a visual representation of how it affects the appearance of text.
Yannick de Kalbermatten – Verso

MA TYPE DESIGN

Yannick de Kalbermatten – Verso

by Yannick de Kalbermatten

Verso is a typeface family composed of three upright styles: Left, Right, and Ambidextal, and a slanted axis ranging from backslanted to slanted. The project comes from a study of left-handed writing practices and how they adapt to systems designed for right-handed use. This often results in unusual writing positions, with shifts in wrist angle, page rotation, and overall gesture. Informed by a survey of around fifty participants, including twenty-one left-handed writers, Verso highlights recurring strategies such as inverted stroke directions and adjusted writing postures. Rather than opposing left- and right-handed writing, Verso builds a continuous space between them where gesture, direction, and form shift within a single family.
Katarzyna Friedrich – Material Type

MA TYPE DESIGN

Katarzyna Friedrich – Material Type

by Katarzyna Friedrich

Material Type is a research project at the intersection of multiple design disciplines that investigates the materiality of type. It examines typography across different materials and production technologies, from metal stamping to injection molding. This research analyzes their preparation, constraints, manufacturing processes, environmental factors and visual outcomes, as each process affects letterforms in unique ways. As knowledge in this area is fragmented, Material Type proposes a sample of instructive technological-typographic taxonomy: a comparative guide that supports informed decisions, improves collaboration, reduces prototyping, and encourages more sustainable design practices.

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