ABC Stefan: Digitizing Artist Stefan Marx’s Handwriting
We’re releasing ABC Stefan today, the result of a multi-year collaboration where we turned contemporary artist Stefan Marx’s handwriting into a digital font.
Over five years, we analyzed and translated Stefan’s handwriting into a fully functional type system of three subfamilies: Simple, Bubble, and Bubble Tight. Each takes inspiration from hand-drawn samples created by Stefan for this project. As we publish the font in our library today, others can now use the Berlin-based artist’s iconic letterforms in their own work.
Stefan Marx for THE DORF © KESTER / THE DORF
We’ve been discussing the idea of a handwriting typeface with Stefan since 2017 — and we’re very excited to finally be celebrating the release tonight at Café Tiergarten in Berlin (more on that here. You’re invited!). And as Stefan has often told us, he himself has been working on his handwriting for more than 20 years.
As a contemporary artist, Stefan has lent his handwriting to a variety of media: paper, canvas, porcelain, and textiles. He publishes artists’ books and zines, designs record covers for various labels, and shows his work in international exhibitions, at book fairs, and galleries.
Stefan mostly uses the Pentel mlj20 pen when drawing and writing, a tool that has therefore become inextricably linked to our digitization. The font’s lines all derive from the thickness of its nib.
LETTER RANDOMIZATION
What makes handwriting feel like handwriting is its inconsistencies. Stefan has drawn four versions of every letter for ABC Stefan (so four A’s, four B’s, four C’s, etc.) — and also four versions of every punctuation mark, symbol, and figure. While digitizing, we built a randomizer function straight into the font software, which randomly displays different versions of letters as you type.
e, t, a, and s are some of the most used letters in the english language, says wiki
This means that just like a human’s handwriting, there are subtle inconsistencies in the digital characters of ABC Stefan when you type strings of text (even the periods are subtly different). Take a look at the character set in its entirety:
ABC Stefan is a fully functional body copy font with accents, numbers, symbols, and punctuation.
FEATURES
A variety of unique features have been encoded into ABC Stefan so that it mimics and builds on Stefan’s handwriting samples, transforming the font into a multidimensional digital tool. You can activate zig-zagging swashes or you can scratch out your mistakes. You can switch ligatures on or off, and write spaciously with Bubble or in a compact way using Bubble Tight.
1. SWASHES
Activate swashes manually as initial, middle, or final swashes by selecting from your alternate menu. You can also switch on the OpenType feature to activate the initial and last swash stylistic set: With it, flourishes will appear on the first and last letter of every word that’s typed.
2. Mistakes
When Stefan provided us with his letter samples, many characters that he didn’t like or considered a mistake were crossed out. Instead of ignoring them, we realized that we could build a “mistake feature” into the font, so that words can also be crossed out digitally.
Just like the letter randomization, there are multiple scribbles to chose from: simple lines, hurried ones, or denser scribbles. Find them via OpenType features.
Photography by Jules Villbrandt for HERZ&BLUT
bubble & bubble tight
As well as ABC Stefan Simple, there are two additional styles of the font, Bubble and Bubble Tight, which balloon Stefan’s simple handwriting into outlined shapes. As any serious text font, these styles are packed with ligatures, which create a dynamic sense of textual flow.
Bubble
Bubble Tight
The most used ligature is TH and the least used is CE, according to wikipedia.
emojis
To make ABC Stefan a fully functioning communication tool in its own right, we have also baked emojis inside the font. Stefan has rendered Apple’s standard emoji pack in his hand, and also added a couple of special, Berlin-themed icons.
that's it
That’s everything for today. Keep an eye out early next week for the ABC Stefan book release and the event recap of our type and book launch at Café Tiergarten.
Love,
Dinamo + Stefan x