TYPE DESIGN

Mara Nolze – Mutual

by Mara Nolze

Mutual investigates how seemingly opposing typographic categories — Sans and Serif — can coexist. Its starting point is a French typographic movement from the mid-twentieth century, Graphie Latine. In reaction to the growing dominance of Swiss neo-grotesque typefaces, french designers argued for a renewal of typographic tradition through preserving the presence of the human body within letterforms. Mutual asks how typography can retain traces of human presence and movement without rejecting technological progress. The type family consists of three related styles: Display, Sans, Serif. Conceptually, the project can be understood as a form of mutualism: an interaction between species within a shared living system, from which all sides can benefit through exchange and relation.