Some years ago, I came across a conference of Rúben‘s where he was going through a painstakingly thorough analysis of metal types of Jean de Villeneuve – the first person to cut and melt metal type in Portugal, from the 1700s.
So when Rúben approached me with this idea of making a typeface out of Villeneuve’s work, I was surprised that we wasn’t aiming for a revival at all: turns out some revivals were done or being done, rendering one more as pointless.
David Laranjeira developed Vilanova, Paulo Heitlinger published João Quinto, Manuel Pereira da Silva did JVilleneuve and Mário Feliciano has been teasing with a revival.
Still, Rúben’s research was so intricate and in-depth – and so damn charming – that it would be a shame to let it go to waste.
So we sat down to discuss where to take it. Ruben told me that, as mentioned before, a revival was not the case: instead, to create a typeface inspired by his research on Villeneuve’s types, but aiming for a contemporary use, while letting the typeface detour from the original – and thus the idea of Regem was born.
Although the idea of creating a typeface for contemporary use based on Villeneuve’s types sounds beautiful, the first question is how? The second question would be how to not collide with work that has been done already?
Incrementing to these concerns, a huge collection of hand-cutted types from the 18th century only adds to the confusion, since the formal variation and inconsistency is dramatic – and I’m being nice.
We came to the conclusion that we needed a logic to follow, so that wouldn’t be overwhelmed by so many possibilities on how to interpret the metal types and specimens; as well as a process and somewhat truncated goals.
Usually, when doing a revival, the obvious way to acquire references is to look a the display types: they formally have more quality and less printing artifacts, making it easier to make choices and to digitize.
We decided to go the other way around: to ignore the display types and look at the smaller ones, filled with artifacts and rough shapes, with not-so-elegant cuts and ink blots.
To start off, the first goal is to produce a text typeface on the smaller side (around 9 – 10 points), while rationalizing the whole process: although a lot of the charm of Villeneuve’s types comes from its inconsistency in angles, terminals and overall forms, for sanity’s sake, we’ll keep options to a minimum and only expand later on.
For other optical sizes, once the text size is done and working, we’ll completely ignore Villeneuve’s work and base the design on the text size.
The whole idea of looking at artifacts and reading them as statements, not errors, is very appealing to me. Consciously or not (and I believe it’s both), typecutters were altering forms to make them work at a given size – and since type is to be seen printed, these errors play a crucial role in the texture – while being limited to their tools and physical constraints.
So when it comes to streamline the formal properties for Regem, looking at these artifacts as statements – and, again, not errors – is crucial.
On the other hand, one has to be sensible about what to ignore. Comparing to the process of creating type in the 1700s, digital type has a baffling degree of precision. Also, printing nowadays is also radically different than from the Baroque period. This first stage of choosing what to take as a trait and what to ignore is where the typeface takes a life of its own.
And in a final note, before we deep-dive into the bits and tricks, I should state that more than solutions, there are alot of questions that act as guidelines on finding this rationale. Here’s a list:
This list isn’t, obviously, complete: a lot of problems, decisions and solutions will come along the way; the idea, here, is to exemplify the mindset around tackling this project.
Until next time.