Alex is a designer based in Prague, Czech Republic. He studied graphic design at Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, University of West Bohemia, after which spent a year doing branding at &Walsh studio from NYC. These days Alex focuses on designing typefaces, making tools to optimize the process and runs @ContemporaryType page on Instagram. He is part of Pangram Pangram Foundry, Future Fonts and Type Tomorrow and a co-organizer of InScript type festival. Alex has won TDC Ascenders, ADC Young Guns, ADC Awards and Modern Cyrillic; judged and talked at Typomania 2021 and gave design workshops; his works have been featured in multiple books and publications about design and type.
Weird Serif
Images courtesy of Alex Slobzheninov
From a functional typeface like Fivo, you’ve evolved your work in a sort of post-modernist design approach, with fonts like Relaate or Weird Serif that reappropriate traditional design elements while playfully embracing contemporary aesthetics. How do you see your work in the balance between experimentation and the need to follow functionalism and readability rules?
Fivo Sans was my first typeface, so it’s pretty basic and different from how I approach type design now. Take the two extremes: on one end, there are wild rule-breaking display fonts where anything is possible; on the other end, there are conventional typefaces strictly following historical norms. To my taste, designing the former is too brutal and latter is too boring, but the tension between them is what makes typography fascinating. It’s a play between familiarity and novelty, expectations and surprises. One of my current methods of finding the balance is taking unusual ideas — the more unusual the better, I suppose — and making them look as normal as possible, finding a good place on that spectrum.
Take Weird Serif, for instance: it’s a typeface based on the idea of serifs hanging down in the corners of letters like V. You have hardly ever seen such serifs elsewhere, but I wanted it to feel normal, almost like it has been the norm for centuries. Similarly, Relaate lean towards the strange side of that range. On the other hand, the Right super family is tuned to be more usual and multi-functional, albeit quirky in details.
The debate about font readability seem to be endless in the design community. I always want my typefaces to be readable and legible.
That’s part of the challenge: make sure the reader doesn’t have problems with reading the text, but experiences it with some delight.
Diaform typeface
What drives you to go into experimental shapes? Is it for purely aesthetic reasons? On Contemporary Type you dedicate a lot of interest to experimental aesthetics...
Pushing the boundaries of what is possible, exploring new software tricks and coming up with new visual treatments is how the industry evolves, in my view.
Most commercial projects are largely repetitive, which of course has to be that way to some extent, so that customers could relate to the brand. Self-initiated works, however, barely have such restrictions and can go crazy in attempt to grab more social media attention.
Then that outcome feeds into client works, making brands more fun.
"Apparently, not everything that works in your head or even looks doable on paper, actually works when you transfer it onto screen."
For the 2021 “36 Days of Type” challenge, you decided to design a whole font every day. This tour de force you made questioned heavily the commonly accepted development timeframe for typefaces, which in the past could be months or even years. What did you get from this experience? Where you satisfied by the results?
I would say first that for me a proper typeface still takes months, probably even years, to be finished. It’s still a long process that I’m trying to optimize and doing the 36 Days of Type was a part of that. It was a study of the process; the tools; how you come up with ideas, drop some, proceed with others. Of course, all these one-day fonts from 36 Days of Type were pretty raw. They kind of look ok on Instagram, but far from being ready for any serious use. That wasn’t the point though; making them in such bootcamp conditions forced me to learn prioritizing, look for shortcuts, avoid redundant steps and gave no time to overthink or nitpick. Also, there’s a big difference between ideas on paper — I have a lot of those — and digital fonts that you can type with, even if they are sketchy. Apparently, not everything that works in your head or even looks doable on paper, actually works when you transfer it onto screen. A few people also interested in challenging themselves have asked me for advice, which is this: don’t draw the whole alphabet and do it maybe once or twice a week.
"The way I approach it, at least at the moment, is by taking weird ideas and making them look as normal as I can."
Both with your work on IG with Contemporary Type and your role in the Inscript festival show a passionate attention towards cutting edge and experimental typography. What do you think is the most interesting direction in the field?
I would, maybe surprisingly, say motion typography. Of course, it’s not a new genre per se, but I think it evolves in pretty interesting ways. If you look at motion typography from 10 or 20 years ago, it’s certainly not what it is now. Thanks to today’s higher-res screens, advanced software, faster internet and more computing power, there’s plenty of new ways to captivate the audience with animated or interactive letters. It’s already practical and has a clear commercial value for the clients, so among other hyping areas I’d bet on good old motion type. Then there are newer things like augmented and virtual reality, which was trendy a few years ago. At the time I was intrigued by it; it seemed like augmented reality type could become the Next Big Thing…
But now it’s almost nowhere to be seen anymore. Perhaps, AR/VR got overshadowed by AI, the Next Big Thing For Sure. This time I’m curious where its ceiling is, because the technology is still experimental and limited. Sure, now anything you make with AI is cool: it’s a collaboration between a human and a machine, or rather a fast way to get a seemingly plausible result; that’s new and gets attention for now.
Nonetheless, we might be ignoring the gap between the plausible sketch and a final work, which is still pretty large. It doesn’t seem to be capable of replacing top-level decision-making creatives any time soon, but already threatens the jobs of those doing mechanical entry-level tasks. I’m not pessimistic and don’t think interns are endangered altogether, but they may have to focus on something else — how about operating the AI? It would be fun to discover I’m wrong and replaced by AI tomorrow, but remember — such loud predictions make catchy headlines.
Still, there are many fields where you can already use it as a type designer. For example, you used AI for promotional mockups. Because in the end, being a type designer is also working on the marketing and telling the story of your project…
Absolutely. And I should level up the storytelling and case studies behind the typefaces. There are many interesting things other than making fonts yet related to that industry, but keeping the quality of any work high usually requires big time investments. There’s a lot of compromises and strategic decisions to make. I have hired talented designers to help with certain tasks and I have asked AI for help too. Apparently, both require specific skills and both help a lot to widen the range of options of how to showcase and present typefaces in more meaningful ways. I think it inspires font users, gives them deeper insights and helps to make decisions for using type. Hopefully, in the end that leads to a richer experience for all of us, readers, humans.
This interview is part of the Type Trends 2023 Lookbook / Vol 5: The counterspaces – Typography in the Age of Black Swans
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