Alice Savoie

Alice
Savoie

Enseignements

TYPE DESIGN

Paul Sturm – Substanz

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Substanz is a typeface that can be customised and adjusted to diverse artistic needs. The type family contains two single-line cuts (Upright and Italic), which act as a gateway into the typeface, as they only become usable when something is added, e.g. a stroke or a pen. They constitute an interface for graphic designers to engage with the typeface and add their own ideas and “handwriting” to the design. The typeface is completed by four text cuts (Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic), which aim for good legibility and balanced text colour. They are designed for situations where legibility is favoured over expression – for example in small sizes.

TYPE DESIGN

Niklas Herrmann – Kyū Maru Gothic

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Inspired by hand-painted Japanese station signs from the late 1950s, Kyū Maru Gothic interprets and expands their handmade heritage into a coherent rounded sans serif and multiscript Latin/Japanese typeface. It carefully considers the warm and individual character created by the brush of the original sign painters and integrates it coherently into a typeface that is aimed at contemporary use. Further following the source, the typeface comes on a width axis to allow for more flexible typesetting for its intended use at display sizes.

TYPE DESIGN

Noam Benatar – Ktura

with Julia Born, Alice Savoie

Ktura is a biscriptual, humanistic Slab-serif, Hebrew-Latin type family aimed for use as a text and title face. It includes nine cuts for both scripts, with four upright and corresponding italic text weights, and a display cut for titles. Ktura was designed following research on the way in which multi-script typefaces, specifically Hebrew-Latin ones, should be designed. The design process emphasises the idea that the understanding of the cultural background of each of the scripts is a crucial part in the design of multiscriptual typefaces. By experimenting with notions of contrast, proportion, white space and more, a comprehensive solution is introduced in the design which allows the typeface to work optimally in different environments where an intersection of the scripts occurs.

TYPE DESIGN

Edouard Bérard – Sita

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Sita is a family of sans and serif typefaces with origins in the Scotch Roman style. Sita Serif is a contemporary interpretation of Miller and Richard’s 1822 Double Pica Roman. Sita Sans is derived from its counterpart, with influences from early British grotesques from the same foundry. Designed to be set together, Sita Sans and Sita Serif are optically matched for optimal typesetting. While they share the same construction, they complement each other by retaining their unique characteristics. Sita’s harmonious texture and intricate details make it suitable for both small and large text sizes. Each style is available in five weights, from light to black, with corresponding italics. An additional display variant, Sans Black Condensed, completes the family.

TYPE DESIGN

André Teixeira da Silva – Herk Type Crew

with Radim Peško, Alice Savoie

Herk is a typeface that incorporates roman and gothic styles, inspired by the aesthetics of b-boying and the recurrence of blackletter on the clothing of its practitioners. The contrast between this centuries-old typography and the relatively young underground world of breaking intrigued me. Inspired by a mysterious letterform popular among b-boys and b-girls, I started by designing a new skeleton. This became the basis for the pencil, marker and brush versions. This early exploration led to the creation of the gothic and roman display variants, underlining a more refined development of Herk. Finally, with the addition of the text versions, Herk underwent its final metamorphosis, combining roman and gothic styles into a unified typeface family.

TYPE DESIGN

Rongyi Tang – Veil

with Julia Born, Alice Savoie

Imagine a remarkable companion who remains by your side every hour of the day, responding to your every whim, seamlessly blending cuteness with sensuality, someone who never cheats or lies. Would you be enticed to embark on a date with such an ideal partner? What if that companion happened to be an egg timer? This project delves into the profound themes of human connections, loneliness and the nature of love in an era dominated by digital advancements. Through the unconventional concept of marrying inanimate objects, Rongyi presents a narrative that is both absurd and humorous, inviting the audience to ask a fundamental question: where do we truly invest our emotions?

TYPE DESIGN

Norma Elzoghbi – Nostalgic Futures

with Julia Born, Alice Savoie

This magazine aims to deconstruct, reinterpret and question Eastern and Western narratives through two distinct lenses: the West in the eyes of the East and the East in the eyes of the West. In a globalised and multi-cultural world, understanding identity disputes has become a crucial issue to end patterns of cross-border misrepresentations. It challenges the notion of “the other”, by documenting past, current and speculative future conflicts. Rather than persuading people, it conveys news from a two-sided narrative, acting as a cross-cultural bridging mechanism. It features a network of international contributors: writers, photographers and researchers. This project showcases my identity as an Lebanese/American, who belongs neither here nor there.

TYPE DESIGN

Raphaela Haefliger – Aligna

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Aligna is a typeface that aims to improve the typographic composition of web pages. Thanks to a combination of variable axes, it fills up the white space without recognising it. It balances the two pitfalls that are distorted characters and irregular composition and provides a regular text grey. Aligna can be combined with an algorithm that distributes the blank space of the line. During research for this project, a parametric font was created to evaluate the respective influence of different aspects of type design. Aligna gathers and combines the ideal value for each element combined on one variable font axis.

TYPE DESIGN

Sergei Rasskazov – Entro

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Entro: A font family for posters and web that combines modern digital technologies and pays tribute to traditional analogue letterpress wood type techniques. Entro Press: A wood type modular system for Letterpress that brings variable features from digital to analogue. Entro Text: A font with soft rounded shapes in variable format, from light to black, for texts and captions. Latin, Cyrillic and Greek supported. Entro Brutal: Geometric typeface without optical compensations that gives brutal charm to text. Entro Py: A series of experimental variable fonts inspired by the specificities of entropy, handcrafted and code-generated with Python.

TYPE DESIGN

Alexandre Lescieux – Radiolar

with Alice Savoie, Matthieu Cortat

Radiolar was inspired by Heinrich Jost’s Jost Mediaeval (1927), which marked a turning point in typography, as geometrically constructed sans serif typefaces started appearing, namely Erbar (1926), Kabel (1927), and Futura, which was published under Jost’s own direction by Bauer. Jost Antiqua seems to be the first serif typeface to go down this utopian path of elementary typography. How does one synthesise the geometric and the organic in typography? Radiolar, named after the spherical marine micro-organisms whose skeletons are made up of highly detailed spicules, attempts to answer this question. Its forms have the intense warmth of calligraphy and the utopia of rationality through geometry, oscillating between complexity and simplicity.

TYPE DESIGN

Samira Schneuwly – Lyga

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Lyga is a restrained and balanced serif typeface family with heavily angled italics to emphasise individual words, short paragraphs or brief headlines. Designed as a utilitarian text font, it is well suited for small sizes where its even and harmonious text colour comes into effect. Lyga draws from a source originally designed as a lead typeface in the late 19th century. Elzévir Turlot was found in the Caractères de Labeurs de l’Imprimerie A. Rey specimen and was carefully interpreted in order to create a design that supports present-day text settings, while retaining the spirit and charm of its original appearance. Lyga comes in six weights with corresponding italics.

TYPE DESIGN

Dominik Bissem – Rivale

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Rivale Serif and Rivale Grotesk are the main typefaces in this family. Both styles are designed to be used at the same time, while retaining their own character. The structure is not mathematically based on the same skeleton, the optical impression stands in the foreground and reflects the concept of the system: as homogeneous as necessary and as independent as possible. Throughout the design process both styles constantly influenced one another, and the system grew organically. Serif and Grotesk come in five weights – light, regular, medium, bold, and dark – with matching italics. The presentation attempts to show the typefaces in a realistic terrain and contrasts them with the author’s own paintings.

TYPE DESIGN

Joana Siniavskaja – Parallel I-IV

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Parallel I–IV is a text typeface composed of four cuts – text, italic, cursive italic and a back slant. Primarily drawn for print application, the family contains an optically corrected screen cut. The typeface provides the possibility to create a typographical hierarchy using a single weight, pointing to new ways of highlighting in print and web environments. The project came from a desire to design a dynamic typeface with strong character in long running text both in screen and print mediums. While creating unique shapes for contemporary use, the design is inspired by Transitional typefaces with a look at various Baroque and Modern typefaces. Remaining functional in small sizes, the typeface retains its qualities throughout the cuts and is suitable for title sizes as well.

TYPE DESIGN

Karima Deghayli – Yameen and Meel

with Alice Savoie, Irene Vlachou

As the world becomes increasingly connected, the need for multiscript type families grows significantly. Yameen is a variable multiscript typeface covering Arabic and Latin. Designed for text, its weights range from regular to bold. The Arabic was inspired by Naskh calligraphy, retaining in its outlines the character of the Qalam. The Latin forms present the same sharp aesthetic taken from the parallel pen offering a calligraphic interpretation of old-style typefaces. Preserving both scripts’ authenticity, Yameen is designed for harmonious bilingual typesetting. Meel is an Arabic display font inspired by various sources: from vintage music albums to vernacular Beirut type. Exploring the Ruqaa style, its boldness excels in large sizes and its flowing character merges the tool and the digital.

TYPE DESIGN

Charly Derouault – Europa

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Europa is a multi-script typeface that builds on the history of European Grotesque typography. Its forms are inherited from Akzidenz Grotesk but developed through a more subtle contrast. The typeface is stable, contemporary. Applied to a utopian project, i.e., the creation of a new pan-European motorway network born under the agreement of all the countries on the continent, the three scripts which compose Europa were drawn jointly, the design of each script significantly influencing the design of the others. Envisaged as an additional or alternative solution to the European motorway signage, the typographic system is completed by a less contrasted, more condensed and rationalised signage body.

TYPE DESIGN

Sam Fagnart – Mirai Toshi

with Irene Vlachou, Alice Savoie

Inspired by archival documents and the graphic design culture of the late 60s and early 70s, Mirai Toshi (The City of the Future) is a visual experimentation in type design which gave birth to two typefaces, Nisego and Metago. Stemming from the module-driven architecture of the Metabolist movement, Metago is a display typeface with a pixel-like quality, but whose strokes and elements are linked together in a heavily constructed yet organic structure. Alongside it stands Nisego, designed with the 70s Japanese Grotesk typefaces in mind, with its rationalised yet calligraphic shapes. The Latin version of Nisego consists of three text cuts, with matching italics, complemented by six all-purpose cuts, from the versatile Medium to the more display-oriented Black.

TYPE DESIGN

Stefan Fitze – Remo & Rhea

with Alice Savoie, Matthieu Cortat

Remo & Rhea is a typeface family based on the proportions of Roman square capitals as found in the inscription on the tomb of the children of Sextus Pompeius Justus (2nd century AD) on the Via Appia in Rome. Linked by their common origin – an apocryphal sketch of the development of Roman Type – Remo Sans and Rhea Serif intrinsically evolved into a set of two emancipated yet related typefaces, expanding the notion of the traditional type family. Consisting of a sans serif (Remo) and a serif typeface (Rhea) with a typewriter complement, the family is explicitly built for text-heavy and typographically complex environments, offering a wide range of possibilities for contemporary typesetting.

TYPE DESIGN

Amélie Gallay – Phaedon

with Matthieu Cortat, Alice Savoie

Phaedon is an elegant typeface family based on Ancien Romain, an Elzevir metal type issued by the French type foundry Deberny & Cie around 1880–1890. Driven by the desire to keep the nobility and fragility of the original, Phaedon’s lighter weights are a faithful reinterpretation of Ancien Romain while the bolder weights are personal interpretations. A text style compliments the family. With its four display weights, matching italics, and a text style, Phaedon is intended for contemporary use and stands out with its highly contrasted, slightly condensed and delicate attributes.

TYPE DESIGN

Chiachi Chao – Kleisch

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Bi-scriptual type design is a challenge for graphic designers, even more so in a world of cross-cultural exchange. Kleisch is a Latin serif typeface designed to work with Chinese Ming-style fonts. It is a synthesis of baroque and neo-classical typography, as the types of Nicholas Kis, Christoffel van Dijck or Johann Michael Fleischmann have a similar stroke construction to CJK (Chinese-Korean-Japanese) Ming-style typefaces. Kleisch does not match with a specific font. However, as a variable font, it offers adjustable axes (weight and contrast) to adapt with different Ming typefaces.

TYPE DESIGN

Marcel Saidov – Semantik

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Mention Très bien Semantik is a typeface family which resulted from research into typefaces for telephone directories and which revisits the “heavy-top” emphasis to increase legibility. Semantik is loosely based on Ladislas Mandel’s Nordica and Colorado, as well as Roger Excoffon’s Antique Olive . The project explores the technical aspects and stylistic elements of typefaces for telephone directories in a screen-based environment, improving legibility in the contexts of both continuous reading on screen and reading while scrolling. The typeface adapts to various screen environments as a variable font with a responsive axis, and adjusts to the dimensions of your computer or mobile device. Semantik contains in total 30 separate styles and includes five weights and italics for desktop, mobile and list versions.

TYPE DESIGN

Alberto Malossi – Beaujon

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Beaujon is a typeface family consisting of five weights and five corresponding italics. Primarily designed for contemporary text setting, its origins can be traced to Pierre Simon Fournier’s contrast model (1764) and landmark Dutch baroque types, such as the ones by Nicholas Kis (1690). Beaujon leverages its influences liberally and quite unsystematically, striving to build tension among rather organic gestures and an intrinsically digital construction. This essential discrepancy gives Beaujon a peculiar effervescence in both running text and larger, more flamboyant display usage.

TYPE DESIGN

Antonio D’Elisiis – Hierax Antiqua

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

Hierax Antiqua is a contemporary typeface family composed of 24 styles with text and display cut, suitable for editorial publication and identity projects. The typeface is inspired by an ancient book printed in Venice around 1750, with various punches cut in different periods (1550 – 1780). Hence the aim of the project is to capture the spirit of Renaissance and Baroque types by analysing the works of Nicolas Jenson, Francesco Griffo, Claude Garamont, Pierre Haultin, Robert Granjon, Hendrik van den Keere, Christoffel van Dijck, Nicholas Kis, Simon de Colines, Guillaume Le Bé, Pierre-Simon Fournier le Jeune and Giambattista Bodoni. Hierax Antiqua aims to crystallise this era with an added contemporary feel through rigorous digital design.

TYPE DESIGN

Sophie Wietlisbach – Typewriter Trio

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

“Typewriter Trio” is a free interpretation of three typewriter fonts, which keeps the unit system imposed by the mechanics of the machine: “Plakat” and “Advocate” are monospaced while “Thesis” is proportional, based on a finer unit. This project connects to my dissertation about three Swiss manufacturers who specialised in the production of fonts for typewriters between 1941 and 1997: Caractères SA, Setag and Novatype. The digital reinterpretations offer contemporary versions of the fonts adapted for modern use. info@sophiewietlisbach.ch https://www.sophiewietlisbach.ch

TYPE DESIGN

Weichi He – Photonic

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

"Photonic" is a serif typeface, resulting from the study and interpretation of the iconic “Cooper Black” originally released in 1922. The project re-imagines the blurry/rounded and heavy classic as a rational and constructed typeface. It further expands on how it would look as an extremely thin and delicate font (“Photonic White”), and how the interpolation in between can deliver a subtle and nuanced cut suitable for continuous reading (“Photonic Grey”). These explorations reveal unexpected structures in its letterforms, with quirks and traits unique to each cut, yet preserving overall consistency. Weichi.he@gmail.com https://www.weichi.works

TYPE DESIGN

Janis Gildein – How to Hide, Being Present,

with Julia Born, Alice Savoie

Published between 1943 and 1967, “Der Kreis” was one of the first gay magazines in Switzerland, whose network grew internationally. As an editorial platform it developed a position and a visual language for the gay community. A contemporary look at the magazine raises questions about the origins of queer culture and its relationship with notions of visibility, i.e. being recognisable while remaining hidden. hello@janisgildein.de http://janisgildein.de

TYPE DESIGN

Sascha Bente – Rhetorik

with Kai Bernau, Alice Savoie

“Rhetorik” is a typeface family consisting of 16 weights. Its subliminal structure is based on a calligraphic model by Giovanni Francesco Cresci (16th century), the origins of which can be found in Walter Tiemann’s “Orpheus” font (1926) and in Otl Aicher’s “Rotis” (1988). While Tiemann serves as a form-giving source, Aicher’s theory of “Rotis” is the decisive reference for “Rhetorik’s” family structure. hello@saschabente.com http://www.saschabente.com

Research

TYPE DESIGN

Beyond Bézier. Explorations of drawing methods in type design

with Matthieu Cortat, Alice Savoie, Kai Bernau, Radim Pesko, Roland Früh

In the early age of digital type, several methods were explored to draw letterforms. One of them, the Bézier spline, an algorithm that generates curves with a small quantity of data, has the crucial advantage of sparing computer memory and processing resources. It is today the industry standard. This project aims to question and reevaluate it, to move beyond established trends, to develop innovative ideas by exploring alternative methods of drawing curves, and letterforms.