One week workshop at Hochschule Mainz with Bachelor students. Design of a full digital alphabet with predefined geometric modules.

In 2011, students of ESAL Metz started within a workshop with Argentinian type designer Alejandro Lo Celso and their teacher Jérôme Knebusch a specific design for their school. Looking for a bookish typeface tending to modern forms, the students found interesting references in the work of Baskerville and Didot, precisely: exactly inbetween. The type grew during the following years, each time in intensive workshop sessions, to a complete type family named Messine, covering text, display, poster, italic, bold, sans and serif versions. Today, Messine is the official and exclusive typeface of the school, used all over its documents.

Editorial design of the Pangramme: learning type design catalogue, published by ESAL Metz, 2016. The catalogue showcases fifty unpublished student type designs, interviews held by the Design graphique & Typographie class at ESAL Metz with the jury members: Andrea Tinnes (Germany), Alejandro Lo Celso (Argentina), Matthieu Cortat (France), Hans-Jürg Hunziker (Switzerland) & Gerard Unger (Netherlands). The catalogue features also bibliography in images, essential books when learning type design, published between 1905 and 2016. Book entirely printed in single black, and distributed freely at the opening of the exhibition. 15x26 cm, 200 pages, soft-cover with dustjacket, limited to 300 copies. Free PDF download of the catalogue (link below). More information about the exhibition here.

One week workshop and research trip with ANRT students at Biblioteca Santa Scolastica in Subiaco, 2018. Digital revival of the two types used (and probably also created) by Konrad Sweynheim & Arnold Pannartz in Subiaco and Rome. Part of the Gotico-Antiqua research program. Published as free OpenSource fonts at ANRT (link below).

Art direction, design & organisation of the Pangramme: learning type design call and exhibition together with the Design graphique & Typographie class at ESAL Metz. The exhibition showcases fifty unpublished student type designs. Jury: Andrea Tinnes (Germany), Alejandro Lo Celso (Argentina), Matthieu Cortat (France), Hans-Jürg Hunziker (Switzerland) & Gerard Unger (Netherlands). The exhibtion traveled after ESAL Metz to ESAD Amiens, Le Signe Chaumont, ATypI Montréal and Druckkunst Museum Leipzig. Free PDF download of the catalogue (link below).

Rudolf Koch began drawing the Offenbach typeface in 1928, the first size was cut in 1931, and Koch made final corrections on his deathbed in 1934. The type was published from 6 to 60 pt posthumously by Gebr. Klingspor foundry in 1935. Stylistically, Offenbach is a hybrid, pairing wide roman capitals with narrow gothic minuscules, a mixture Koch had experienced in several of his typefaces like Jessen or Wallau. His student Hans Kühne had added to the Klingspor release the ‘German’ gothic capitals as alternative to the roman capitals. Offenbach is a faithful revival of Offenbach Mager, the initial thin weight, based on a one-week workshop in 2022 under the direction of Jérôme Knebusch. The students of the HfG Offenbach studied the archive material in the Klingspor Museum and lead type in the nearby printing workshop in the Bernardbau. The Offenbach typeface is freely usable by anyone, privately or professionally, under the Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 license. This licence allows free use of the font, provided that the type and author are mentioned when using it (Offenbach by Rudolf Koch) and that no modification is made to its design.

One week workshop with Bachelor students. Design of a digital alphabet where capitals and minuscules have a distinctive different drawing.