{TypoVar} ontwerpers

About 2000 years ago some Scandinavian people visited went on holidays in the Alps and learned to read and reproduce the scratches made by the people who lived there. That said that their forefathers got it from people more south, somewhere near Italy or Greece.
Once they returned home their youngest son (who else) started scratching the signs everywhere he could.
“Impressive”, said the local fishermen, who always argued whose fish was sold to whom. “Can you use this to write our names?”, they asked. “Of-course”, said the boy, “I can write whatever you want.” Another guy was impressed and needed something to honour his father. A few days ago he died in a terrible accident. “Write something nice about my father”, he said “and make sure it lasts till eternity!” The boy tried scratching in stone, but discovered that stone was too hard to cut. “Let’s try something more heavy!” and he picked up his fathers hammer.
He started somewhere on the edge, but after a few hours of hard hammering, he realised that his text wasn’t gone fit. “Well, I’d better carve in a circle, or even better, a snake.” He started chopping and finally turned his gray rock into a monument.

A few years later some monks from the south came up with a new idea: portable scratching: in living colour. Their rock was with as snow (and fold-able like paper) and their hammer was sharp as a needle (and light as a feather). The writing looked a bit different than the ones they were used. Some said it looked worse, but because the monks threatened to kill everyone who refused, the new scripture was soon used by everyone in the country (Thank God!).
In the meantime some rebels wrote their signs on walls all over the world. Others carved in wooden boxes and decorated steel with their secret signs. “If it were only possible to create some-kind of secret mystery about our carving, everyone would want to have our engravings”, they said one-another.

Beautiful Sagas were told to emphasize the relevance of rune.

But what is the real relevance of runes? What’s the influence on western typedesign?

Hoewel ik nog geen kant-en-klare fonts heb, ben ik wel bezig met het tekenen en digitaliseren van letters. Op dit moment liggen er twee projecten te wachten.

Het eerste project is ‘Hadassa’, een cursieve letter die geïnspireerd is op de FF Quadraat van Fred Smeijers, maar toch even anders. Het zal een ‘upright-italic’ worden, hetgeen van oudsher het geval was bij cursief schrift. De letter moet zuinig lopen en–in tegenstelling tot de meeste cursieven–ook geschikt zijn voor broodtekst.

Mijn tweede letterontwerpproject is ‘WC’. Eigenlijk heette het eerst Wijde Cursief, maar dat is geen geschikte naam voor een letter, omdat het een aanduiding voor het gewicht van een letter is (net als bold, italic of regular). WC is de werktitel van een brede, rechtopstaande cursief. Het zal meer een displayletter worden die geschikt is voor koppen, etc.