Double posted “Budapest” when I meant to post this one instead

Part 2

Thanks for the invite. Will proudly display my Most Lines Award.

S’more

#typedesign #artnouveau #jugendstil

I often post procreate timelapses on my IG page. I hadn’t noticed until just now that bluesky has added video, so I’ll start sharing them here too.

I drew the medium weight first, and edited the light and bold from there. The distribution of weight onto the “skeleton” of the underlying letterform comes naturally to me after having drawn letters for a decade, so it doesn’t really feel like “redesign” so much as variations on the same drawing.

Letters speak beyond words, whether you intend them to or not. As it happens, I have devoted my adult life to getting really good at drawing them. If you are serious about the message you want to deliver, you too must learn to speak beyond words. Let me help you do it.

A ham fisted example: “You’ll be mine forever” changes meaning significantly when written in elegant cursive, versus being scratched out in blood. Less obvious: a logo will make us feel differently when it is set in helvetica versus futura (this is a little thing we like to call “graphic design”).

These forms stir us deeply, more instinctual than the words we read subsequently.

For better or worse, letters are just like us. Often, they speak thoughtlessly, unaware of their greater context. This harms the perception of what is meant to be conveyed.

In our dependence on the written word for communication, we often neglect the medium’s architecture. Because the word (or sentence, or paragraph) speaks also visually, prior to being understood to represent a noun (blackbird) or a verb (flies), through the forms of its letters.

Here’s my elevator pitch, presuming we are in a very slow elevator:

A word (or a sentence, or a paragraph) conveys a message through its literal meaning. “The blackbird flies”, you read, and now you picture a blackbird aloft in the sky.
But there’s a catch, as always.

Well said. At times I envied your minimalist approach, but still so full of life. The “o” in Lórien made me question everything I know, it’s perfect.

My process was partially driven by the needs and wants of Foreign Affairs’ creative director; the softness of Ubique fits me regardless.

Thanks so much Rutherford. Big fan of Lórien, won’t hesitate to say I peaked at it a few times.

Much obliged, Max

Cheers Patrick!

Constantly