residence slow fonts, 2021
Leipzig, July 2021
Bureau Muséal and Studio Ganek invite Slow Fonts to a residency at Gegenüber Leipzig.
Slow Fonts is an online type foundry offering a selection of fonts designed by Fabien Coupas and illustrated by Jérémy Barrault.
Fabien Coupas is a typographer, his creative process revolves around the shape and contrasts of each glyph to find the balance that will form the whole, the typeface distributed by Slow Fonts. He then invited Jérémy Barrault to experiment with his typefaces by creating short illustrated stories. Each Slow Fonts typeface is introduced by a drawing by the illustrator and the typographer, in a dialogue between lines, solids and voids.
During this residency, Fabien Coupas worked on the prototype of the Werkzeug typeface, whose design process is a continuation of Bureau Muséal's research into the Euroformat standard, a new principle of standardisation and harmonisation inspired by the Europe format. Fabien Coupas worked on adapting this concept so that it could be applied to the creation of a typographic typeface. This led him to come up with a deliberately minimal and rudimentary design grid for tracing each glyph.
Werkzeug is governed by the economy of design that is the hallmark of this typeface, with its raw, technical and functional style and its accepted rough edges. Werkzeug's design principle also echoes the concepts of the normograph and typefaces designed according to modular or standardised systems.
Jérémy Barrault has produced a new short illustrated story featuring this typeface, which will introduce the Werkzeug typographic specimen on Slow Fonts.
Following this residency, Fabien Coupas was invited to take part in the Atelier du Bureau Muséal workshop to produce an installation for the exhibition The Future of Cities. Not For Granted at Halle 14, Leipzig's centre for contemporary art.
The residency also led Bureau Muséal to use this new typeface for its graphic identity, designed by Fabien Coupas.
Werkzeug will soon be available in 4 styles on the Slow Fonts platform.
This project is supported by the OFAJ.
