Before moving to Berlin to become Dinamo’s first intern in 2014—and before starting his design studies at FH Bielefeld—Erkin worked as a pre-press technician, building and printing signage and adverts at a Werbetechnik production service in his hometown.
Erkin’s time spent thinking about the construction of signage and their type systems fed into the development of Repro—as did growing up around his father, a sign-maker (and Jujutsu black belt). Our own friendship and collaboration with Erkin began over eight years ago and continues to this day, spanning many Dinamo in-house projects, like the recently published Diatype Expanded or the typeface we’re currently creating with artist Stefan Marx.
Erkin showed us his concept for Repro during our first years together. The initial seed for the typeface began with his idea for a circle function, and all stylistic choices and the design of characters grew from there. The typeface went through many sketches and iterations, growing and expanding over many years and conversations until it morphed into the Frankenstein’s monster you’re looking at today.
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