Designing Fonts
I came across this series of images by font foundry MAC Rhino showing the design process for a font used by fashion retailer H&M. I think it’s really some great work, because at first look (and maybe even with second, third and fourth looks) you’d probably think it’s hand written with a typical marker pen used in retail shops.
I think this is one of the tougher tasks in font design – to mimic a very natural organic writing into a systematic font. The little nuances of every stroke has to be accurately captured, edited and re-edited (you can see some of that process on the top few images – the pencil mark shows the editing comments). We have seen how a font that mimics handwriting or scripts can easily become unnatural – you know it’s just a font (cue BrushScriptMT, perhaps the notorious Comic Sans even).
For this H&M font though, they’ve made it look effortless. I think that’s probably one of the defining elements of great design actually – an execution that looks effortless (when it’s most likely anything but).
Hi!
Thanks for kind words about my work on the custom type for H&M. I usually scan the the Internet pretty well, but I missed this little gem.
Best regards
/Stefan H (type designer)
Hey Stefan,
As I said in the post – I thought this was great work! Thanks for dropping by – keep in touch!
Couldn’t have said it better myself! Thanks for the link and keep up the great blog!
Cheers,
Van
what is that font called?