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The FontFont Release 44 which was announced in the February 21st Newsletter introduces two brand new font families from a relatively unknown type designer – FF Polymorph™ by Stefanie Schwarz and a newcomer – FF Utility™ by Lukas Schneider. Both originated at German universities, respectively as a thesis and a graduation project.
FF Polymorph™
Polymorph book, designed to present and explain the typeface
Polymorph book, designed to present and explain the typeface
The FF Polymorph™ type system was developed by Stefanie Schwarz (°1979) for her thesis PostpostScript: Letterforms of the future – type design in times of Unicode and OpenType� at Pforzheim University. This thesis was written from February to June 2006 under the tutelage of Professor Michael Throm and Professor Uli Cluss of the State Academy of Art and Design Stuttgart. As is hinted at by the title Stefanie’s research was inspired by these new technologies.
The creation of Polymorph was done in several phases. For the academical writing Stefanie collected as much information as she could find on Unicode and OpenType. This taught her what dramatic impact these new technologies have on digital communication and contemporary digital type. Nowadays an increasing number of characters from languages from all over the world are accessible to an increasing number of people. The premise for her design project was that the common availability of this growing number of letterforms would be reflected in future type design.
The first months were mainly devoted to developing the basic concept and designing most of the characters. Initially Stefanie searched through numerous scripts on www.decodeunicode.org looking for characters with shapes – not meaning – similar to specific Latin letters. She eventually collected about 500 characters from 43 scripts. Those 500 selected characters were then divided into four subgroups according to their formal characteristics.
1| The group Loop basically consists of characters originating from South-East Asia. The most prominent shape is a kind of loop.
2| The group Decoration includes – amongst others – Rune characters. Decorative elements like a dot within a counter are typical for this classification.
3| The group Serif is made up of Cyrillic and some Asian scripts. Specific for this group are the strokes that overlap the stems.
4| The group Interruption is composed of Hebrew and Asian characters. The disconnected stem strokes make them look like stencil font characters.
Polymorph then started to take shape as a type system consisting of a base font (Polymorph Base) with four style variants – or rather four directions which are determined by the aforementioned classifications; Decoration for Polymorph North, Serif for Polymorph East, Loop for Polymorph South and Interruption for Polymorph West.
Each style/direction was further abstracted into a secondary style. Polymorph Far North, Polymorph Far East, Polymorph Far South and Polymorph Far West single out the distinctive details of the styles/directions they are based upon.
At this stage the limits of legibility are exceeded. The characters turn into abstract shapes; some sort of universal code which on the one hand represents the new typeface and on the other hand exemplifies the characters from the multitude of scripts which formed the inspiration for the new letterforms. Those additions can be layered over their legible equivalents or used as mere decoration.
An extra font rounds out the family. Polymorph Interformal is composed of separate characters from all four styles/directions. It sums up what the whole type family stands for: a multicultural type system consisting of a multitude of styles which brings together shapes from all over the world.
Polymorph book, designed to present and explain the typeface
After her graduation Stefanie continued working on the typeface and completed the character sets, adding diacritics, special characters and punctuation marks. In fall 2006 she eventually submitted Polymorph to FontShop International where it got accepted. In the final fonts the decorative additions are integrated in their respective readable equivalents and made accessible through the OpenType feature ‘Stylistic Sets’.
The images above and below show the book that was designed to showcase the Polymorph typeface. In 2007 this book was awarded a Certificate of Typographic Excellence by the Type Directors Club in New York. And last month the typeface received an award in the category Type Design from the Tokyo Type Directors Club.
Polymorph book, designed to present and explain the typeface
I’ve talked about high-concept typefaces before when reviewing type on Typographer.org, and more often than not found them lacking because it felt like the concept had been crowbarred into the design. Fortunately this is absolutely not the case with FF Polymorph. One gets the impression the design naturally evolved from this collection of ‘foreign’ glyphs into an inventive, joyful display face.
The character shapes from all those different scripts were successfully stylized; the ample, slightly squarish structure of the glyphs providing a unifying framework, which resulted in a coherent and harmonious design. This makes for an interesting tension between the rationalized shapes and curves, and the sometimes very organic base forms of the characters. The secondary styles add to the fun factor of the type family, as they provide a wide array of semi-abstract character fragments and ornamental bits to either enhance the corresponding base fonts or compose obscure code-like messages.
FF Utility™
Printouts of Gazoline, the predecessor to FF Utility.
The development of FF Utility™ by Lukas Schneider(°1973) was also done in several phases. When Lukas started work on his graduation project in 2002/2003 he called it ‘a project initiated by academic interest’, as his main incentive for designing an all-purpose typeface was that he simply wanted to know more about type. Although he designed a couple of display faces during his studies he never made an attempt at creating a ‘serious’ typeface.
The project was initiated while Lukas was studying graphic design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main. With graduation drawing closer it became obvious to him that he wanted to design a typeface. His main reason was that – although he was fascinated by type and letterforms – Lukas didn’t know much about actual type design. Yet this wouldn’t stop him for having a go at it.
Presentation of FF Utility (then called Gazoline) as Lukas Schneider’s graduation project at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main.
On the very last day before the start of the graduation process, a print on the university blackboard caught Lukas’ attention. It was a notice from Linotype Library stating they were looking for a student to work on their type database and occasionally (he could barely believe his own eyes) assist Linotype Type Director Akira Kobayashi with his type designs.
Lukas managed to secure the position by showing some of the display faces he designed during his studies, which Akira found interesting.
While at Linotype Lukas started working on his typeface in earnest. Every fortnight he showed his letterforms which Akira reviewed and corrected – invaluable feedback for a budding type designer.
Detail of the presentation of Gazoline, the predecessor to FF Utility.
Detail of the presentation of Gazoline, the predecessor to FF Utility.
It took him about half a year to complete a first version with Light, Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic weights. This version was presented as Lukas’ graduation project under the monicker ‘Gazoline’, and subsequently was awarded at the Art Directors Club für Deutschland (ADC) ‘New Blood’ competition in 2003.
Yet as any designer knows design is a continuing process. You’re guaranteed to discover mistakes and become less happy with certain details within a matter of months or even weeks. So after having set the typeface aside for some months Lukas picked up Gazoline again and the second phase in its development began. By that time Lukas had become dissatisfied with the typeface to such an extent that he threw away all the variants except one weight and started correcting it again.
Design corrections on Gazoline, the predecessor to FF Utility.
Design corrections on Gazoline, the predecessor to FF Utility.
Spacing corrections on Gazoline, the predecessor to FF Utility.
Once the Regular weight was to his liking, Lukas proceeded with designing the Light and Black variants – Black was a suggestion of Erik Spiekermann’s. Those extreme weights allowed him to interpolate intermediate weights, which were then extensively checked and corrected. As Lukas didn’t had the possibility to work on it full-time the whole process again took two to three years to finish.
Being a novice Lukas initially thought his fonts only needed 256 characters each. Yet since the advent of OpenType a lot more are required, for example multiple number sets and special characters, which meant a lot more work needed to be done. After a few months of filling the character slots to meet FontShop requirements the typeface was finished by the end of 2007 and is now available under the name FF Utility.
The style of FF Utility betrays Lukas Schneider’s love for rational, constructed typefaces like for example Eurostile or DIN. The superellipse structure of the curves lend his typeface that typical technical look, but with a slightly humanistic touch. This humanistic touch was achieved by veering away from the construction-based model through handwriting motives. For example the outgoing stroke on the lowercase ‘e’ breaks out of the grid and infuses some dynamism into the letterform. By opening up the end strokes he lets the characters breathe and improves their legibility.
FF Utility is a solid effort and a worthwhile addition to the wide humanistic squarish sans serifs – see also FF Max for example. The family has a nice range of weights – from Light to Black in five steps – and alternate lowercase ‘a’s and a ‘g’ expand its voice. The design is perfectly in sync with the current fashion in graphic and type design but probably won’t go out of style anytime soon.
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Very nice, thanks for the in-depth reviews. They both look usable. Where can we buy the Polymorph book!?
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Just bought some of the Polymorph styles; been in the typographic kindergarten since. Thoroughly enjoyable. It is like you say: high concept while stil very usable. Great font.
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I don't know if the booklet is still available and for sale. I will contact Stefanie and ask her about it.
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FF Utility is excellent.
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