When choosing a font for the layout of his own book, «Hacer y Componer» («Making and Composing»), Francisco Gálvez decided that the best option would be to design a new typeface that would respond well to the requirements of the book, such as the coexistence of different scripts from around the world on the same page. The result of this design process, which ran parallel to the book’s gestation, is the Otta typeface that we present here. Otta is a versatile design that integrates a dynamic sense of writing (both calligraphic & typographic) with an essence that could be described as artisanal, like hand-drawn lettering. The latter is experienced as a personal reaction to the often unthinking acceptance of the advance of AI as a consumer good. Francisco shares valuable milestones in the self-taught journey he took to design Otta, a family that now includes extended versions of Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, and Latin panUnicode. He also reveals secrets of type design, in this case closely linked to book design, two crafts that the author practices with passion. Otta is undoubtedly Francisco Gálvez’s masterpiece to date. Here are the motivations & challenges that guided him in the design of this typeface.  Read

The latest addition to our type library is a typeface conceived and developed in Mexico that delves into a style little explored in contemporary type design. With both a historical and innovative approach, Gorgias seeks to revitalize the blackletter tradition through a sophisticated and functional interpretation that, made with great passion for detail, results in a renewed and versatile version of the Fraktur style, and in turn in one of the most complete proposals of the genre in today’s type scene. This text traces the foundations and motivations in the design process of Gorgias, explores its formal and functional aspects and highlights its potential to enrich projects with an evocative and dynamic visual aesthetic.  Read

The Perec super family adds a new style: the Perec Scripte, a script variant that has been a major design and production challenge. Perec Scripte includes two styles of “writing”: bound and unbound letters, both declined in six weights with large linguistic support and many typographic goodies, as well as a decorative version with graphic impact. Here I share with you the secrets of the slow firing of these fonts, a design process that took many years of exploration, drawing, testing, refinement, passion.  Read

For those of you who know us, you know that we like projects that are hard to classify. This is one of them, and it is one that we like very much, the Perec family: a sans grotesque that has a lot to offer. From its origin it responded to quite complex artistic and conceptual criteria, as a tribute to the multifaceted work of French writer Georges Perec, but over time with the addition of new styles it has become a versatile type system offering a diverse palette of easily combinable forms. Here we share with you a brief overview of the design process and the cuisine of these fonts. Just remember that new Perec styles are being prepared! It is an ongoing project. It could not be otherwise, Georges Perec would have wanted it that way.  Read

Second and final installment of Tere Schultz’s text on Tuscan letters. Those decorative objects, delicate or extravagant, that inhabit the streets and typographic catalogues of all times, without losing an iota of expressive force. The product of ornamental ingenuity, Tuscan vernaculars dress the street signs of Mexico as much as the stained glass windows of Paris, the ‘fileteados porteños’ of Buenos Aires or the hulls of fishing boats in the Amazon waters. Against this notorious and implausible decorative ubiquity, which alarms many, in the first part of this article Schultz unfolded, like a healing balm, his hypothesis of how the Tuscan style would have been born of a mischievous interpretation of the inscriptions on stone. In this second chapter, it only remains to delight us with some examples of Tuscan vernaculars from some corners of the world.  Read

Tere Schultz delivers a new literary and typographic divertimento for passionate readers. This time she follows one of her personal fixations: the Tuscan letters. Those ornamental objects, delicate or extravagant, that inhabit streets and typographic catalogs of all times, without losing an iota of expressive force. The product of decorative ingenuity, Tuscan vernaculars dress the street signs of Mexico as much as the stained glass windows of Paris, the ‘fileteado porteño’ of Buenos Aires signs or the hulls of fishing boats in the Amazon waters. However, this decorative ubiquity, notorious and implausible, alarms many. Fortunately, like a healing balm, Schultz will deploy here her original hypothesis, suspiciously unexplored, of how the Tuscan style would have been born from a mischievous interpretation of the stone inscriptions (wrongly) called lapidary. Although perhaps here the term ‘lapidary’ is appropriate, since the idea caught the author strolling through a cemetery. (Warning: sensitive material. Agnostic typographers and designers of little faith, please refrain).  Read

Francis Ramel, member of Nouvelle étiquette, French graphic design bureau based in Metz and in Strasbourg, portrays the challenges and unfolds the design process of this singular project: the design of a bespoke typeface family to be used for the identity and signage system of the cathedral Saint-Étienne de Metz (FR), which turns 800 years old in 2020. This challenging type design task was undertaken jointly by Nouvelle étiquette and the PampaType foundry, which has been a privileged partner of the studio for years.  Read

Francisco Gálvez presents to us his daring reattempt at a type categorization, a much broader and versatile one, more suitable to our times. The author rethinks the values of preceding classifications and reinterprets them in a new model, one that does not seek to be a classification in itself but an original instrument to situate and study the diversity of today’s typefaces.  Read

Segunda y última entrega del 1er capítulo del libro “Tipografía en Latinoamérica. Orígenes e identidad”, editado por Cecilia Consolo y publicado por Blucher en Brasil, 2013. Sus editores han aceptado amablemente publicarlo aquí. Es una mirada retrospectiva y muy personal de la historia de la tipografía europea desde Gutenberg a la era digital. Pretender abarcar semejante lapso de tiempo en tan poco espacio habilita a posibles exageraciones y reduccionismos. El objetivo ha sido intentar provocar al lector a continuar su propia búsqueda. La primera parte toca en los episodios significativos desde el tipo móvil alemán de fines del s. XV, la escuela humanista italiana, Jenson, Manucio y Griffo, la Edad de Oro francesa del s. XVI, de Tory a Garamond y Robert Granjon. La 2da parte retoma en el barroco neerlandés del s. XVII e intenta referir los hitos fundamentales de la producción británica, ibérica, alemana, y holandesa, incluido el empuje en tipo digital de La Haya. A modo didáctico, imágenes comparativas de anatomía y evolución de las formas tipográficas se han sumado al final de esta 2da parte. (Escrito en Ciudad de México, 10 de enero de 2010.)  Read

I wrote this essay in 2000 when I was a student at the MA in Type Design at the University of Reading. I intended to explore the history and development of multi-style type families across the 20th century. Nowadays the idea of 'series' is much present in current type industry, almost every new family comes in different styles. Fluid digital technology on one side, the constant push of the font industry on the other, have all made type design to challenge traditional classification approaches. In that sense I think this text has still some contribution to make.  Read