TYPE DESIGN
Rasa
with Marie Lusa
Rasa is a modular stencil typeface designed by Mac Wang. It consists of two masters, Roman and Alien, with the possibility of complementing each other by overlaying them. Semester project mentored by Marie Lusa.
TYPE DESIGN
Wallace
with Kai Bernau
Wallace is a semester project by Gabriela Jaime and Pauline Heppeler, developed during the course “Tools Make Shapes”, led by Kai Bernau. “We worked with the metaphor of dancing and how our body behaves when it moves. This led to experimentation with two types of mechanisms; the first prototype followed the scissors logic, while the later one (and final) followed the compass logic. This typology of object allowed us to translate dance movements like spin and pivot, drag and drag across (sliding along the floor) onto an open typographical stroke and structure. It was important for us to show the coordination and movement of two that becomes one – hence we chose to maintain the final output as an open stroke typeface.”
TYPE DESIGN
ON 2040 - MASTER TYPE DESIGN
with Larissa Kasper
Following a collaboration with the Swiss avant-garde brand On, ECAL is proud to present the interdisciplinary work carried out jointly by the 2nd year students of the Product Design, Photography and Type Design Masters.
TYPE DESIGN
Raphaela Haefliger – Aligna
with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie
Aligna is a typeface that aims to improve the typographic composition of web pages. Thanks to a combination of variable axes, it fills up the white space without recognising it. It balances the two pitfalls that are distorted characters and irregular composition and provides a regular text grey. Aligna can be combined with an algorithm that distributes the blank space of the line. During research for this project, a parametric font was created to evaluate the respective influence of different aspects of type design. Aligna gathers and combines the ideal value for each element combined on one variable font axis.
TYPE DESIGN
Giacomo Bastianelli – Quarto
with Matthieu Cortat, Irene Vlachou
Unlike the more traditional five-lined musical stave, a graphic score is a different way of notating a piece of music. Originally called “eye music,” it first appeared in its modern form in the 1950s, when notation became more and more influenced by a dialogue with painting, installations, and performativity. These conceptions required a new language and a unique reading of what it is to be musical. Quarto aims to revisit the idea of graphic scores in a contemporary tone, connecting MIDI technology with variable fonts and producing an experience that could take the form of an interactive/synesthetic performance or a piece of printed visual music with its own autonomy, independent of sound.
TYPE DESIGN
Sergei Rasskazov – Entro
with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie
Entro: A font family for posters and web that combines modern digital technologies and pays tribute to traditional analogue letterpress wood type techniques. Entro Press: A wood type modular system for Letterpress that brings variable features from digital to analogue. Entro Text: A font with soft rounded shapes in variable format, from light to black, for texts and captions. Latin, Cyrillic and Greek supported. Entro Brutal: Geometric typeface without optical compensations that gives brutal charm to text. Entro Py: A series of experimental variable fonts inspired by the specificities of entropy, handcrafted and code-generated with Python.
TYPE DESIGN
Alexandre Lescieux – Radiolar
with Alice Savoie, Matthieu Cortat
Radiolar was inspired by Heinrich Jost’s Jost Mediaeval (1927), which marked a turning point in typography, as geometrically constructed sans serif typefaces started appearing, namely Erbar (1926), Kabel (1927), and Futura, which was published under Jost’s own direction by Bauer. Jost Antiqua seems to be the first serif typeface to go down this utopian path of elementary typography. How does one synthesise the geometric and the organic in typography? Radiolar, named after the spherical marine micro-organisms whose skeletons are made up of highly detailed spicules, attempts to answer this question. Its forms have the intense warmth of calligraphy and the utopia of rationality through geometry, oscillating between complexity and simplicity.
TYPE DESIGN
Samira Schneuwly – Lyga
with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie
Lyga is a restrained and balanced serif typeface family with heavily angled italics to emphasise individual words, short paragraphs or brief headlines. Designed as a utilitarian text font, it is well suited for small sizes where its even and harmonious text colour comes into effect. Lyga draws from a source originally designed as a lead typeface in the late 19th century. Elzévir Turlot was found in the Caractères de Labeurs de l’Imprimerie A. Rey specimen and was carefully interpreted in order to create a design that supports present-day text settings, while retaining the spirit and charm of its original appearance. Lyga comes in six weights with corresponding italics.
TYPE DESIGN
Dominik Bissem – Rivale
with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie
Rivale Serif and Rivale Grotesk are the main typefaces in this family. Both styles are designed to be used at the same time, while retaining their own character. The structure is not mathematically based on the same skeleton, the optical impression stands in the foreground and reflects the concept of the system: as homogeneous as necessary and as independent as possible. Throughout the design process both styles constantly influenced one another, and the system grew organically. Serif and Grotesk come in five weights – light, regular, medium, bold, and dark – with matching italics. The presentation attempts to show the typefaces in a realistic terrain and contrasts them with the author’s own paintings.
TYPE DESIGN
Laura Zsófia Csocsán – Neureal
with Kai Bernau, Marie Lusa
The book Neureal features an exploration of AI software that was tested on a series of images. Glitches and the software’s “residues” expose the neural filter’s activity, which colourises black and white photographs. The visual material highlights different scenarios in relation to our technology-influenced, everyday lives, shown in contrast with images of flowers and nature. They ultimately construct an alternate reality created by the programme. Neureal Display is a reverse-contrast sans, accompanied by a Mono version designed for small sizes. Initial drawings based on visual distortions were extrapolated, generating new ideas with mathematical calculations. The final typeface consists of these revised and redrawn shapes as a result of this back-and-forth experimentation with the software.
TYPE DESIGN
Joana Siniavskaja – Parallel I-IV
with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie
Parallel I–IV is a text typeface composed of four cuts – text, italic, cursive italic and a back slant. Primarily drawn for print application, the family contains an optically corrected screen cut. The typeface provides the possibility to create a typographical hierarchy using a single weight, pointing to new ways of highlighting in print and web environments. The project came from a desire to design a dynamic typeface with strong character in long running text both in screen and print mediums. While creating unique shapes for contemporary use, the design is inspired by Transitional typefaces with a look at various Baroque and Modern typefaces. Remaining functional in small sizes, the typeface retains its qualities throughout the cuts and is suitable for title sizes as well.
TYPE DESIGN
Karima Deghayli – Yameen and Meel
with Alice Savoie, Irene Vlachou
As the world becomes increasingly connected, the need for multiscript type families grows significantly. Yameen is a variable multiscript typeface covering Arabic and Latin. Designed for text, its weights range from regular to bold. The Arabic was inspired by Naskh calligraphy, retaining in its outlines the character of the Qalam. The Latin forms present the same sharp aesthetic taken from the parallel pen offering a calligraphic interpretation of old-style typefaces. Preserving both scripts’ authenticity, Yameen is designed for harmonious bilingual typesetting. Meel is an Arabic display font inspired by various sources: from vintage music albums to vernacular Beirut type. Exploring the Ruqaa style, its boldness excels in large sizes and its flowing character merges the tool and the digital.
TYPE DESIGN
Charly Derouault – Europa
with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie
Europa is a multi-script typeface that builds on the history of European Grotesque typography. Its forms are inherited from Akzidenz Grotesk but developed through a more subtle contrast. The typeface is stable, contemporary. Applied to a utopian project, i.e., the creation of a new pan-European motorway network born under the agreement of all the countries on the continent, the three scripts which compose Europa were drawn jointly, the design of each script significantly influencing the design of the others. Envisaged as an additional or alternative solution to the European motorway signage, the typographic system is completed by a less contrasted, more condensed and rationalised signage body.
TYPE DESIGN
Sam Fagnart – Mirai Toshi
with Irene Vlachou, Alice Savoie
Inspired by archival documents and the graphic design culture of the late 60s and early 70s, Mirai Toshi (The City of the Future) is a visual experimentation in type design which gave birth to two typefaces, Nisego and Metago. Stemming from the module-driven architecture of the Metabolist movement, Metago is a display typeface with a pixel-like quality, but whose strokes and elements are linked together in a heavily constructed yet organic structure. Alongside it stands Nisego, designed with the 70s Japanese Grotesk typefaces in mind, with its rationalised yet calligraphic shapes. The Latin version of Nisego consists of three text cuts, with matching italics, complemented by six all-purpose cuts, from the versatile Medium to the more display-oriented Black.
TYPE DESIGN
Stefan Fitze – Remo & Rhea
with Alice Savoie, Matthieu Cortat
Remo & Rhea is a typeface family based on the proportions of Roman square capitals as found in the inscription on the tomb of the children of Sextus Pompeius Justus (2nd century AD) on the Via Appia in Rome. Linked by their common origin – an apocryphal sketch of the development of Roman Type – Remo Sans and Rhea Serif intrinsically evolved into a set of two emancipated yet related typefaces, expanding the notion of the traditional type family. Consisting of a sans serif (Remo) and a serif typeface (Rhea) with a typewriter complement, the family is explicitly built for text-heavy and typographically complex environments, offering a wide range of possibilities for contemporary typesetting.
TYPE DESIGN
Amélie Gallay – Phaedon
with Matthieu Cortat, Alice Savoie
Phaedon is an elegant typeface family based on Ancien Romain, an Elzevir metal type issued by the French type foundry Deberny & Cie around 1880–1890. Driven by the desire to keep the nobility and fragility of the original, Phaedon’s lighter weights are a faithful reinterpretation of Ancien Romain while the bolder weights are personal interpretations. A text style compliments the family. With its four display weights, matching italics, and a text style, Phaedon is intended for contemporary use and stands out with its highly contrasted, slightly condensed and delicate attributes.
TYPE DESIGN
Labour Tool Product
with Julia Born
“Labour, Tool, Product” is an editorial project, self-initiated by Samira Schneuwly. The book explores the universal profession of farming, its evolution and the technologies and possibilities associated with it through carefully curated images from ETH Zürich’s online image archive and excerpts from her great-grandfather’s and grandfather’s inventory books.