The Habitat of a Typeface Today

Wetlands by
Tizian Repp

Wetlands

… (copying research excerpts) Despite their essential role in global climate regulation, wetlands remain undervalued by policy and decision-makers in national plans. Approximately 35% of the world’s wetlands were lost between 1970–2015 and the loss rate is accelerating annually since 2000. 25% of all wetlands plants and animals are at risk of extinction. That said …

After looking at the last images to be found online, the frog still isn’t satisfied with what he has seen thus far. His whole life he’s been living in this crammed apartment, wondering about the luxury that indulged frogs before his time! Wetlands, swamps, rich biospheres abundant with life, but those are no more... He boots up his computer click and asks it to imagine tip how his home might have looked tip tip tip all those years ago. Knowing fully well tip tip that it won‘t be the same … (and then he decides to make a typeface out of it)

Tizian Repp

Since the first personal computer came into this world in the 1980s, there have already been three generations of the World Wide Web. Web standards have continuously evolved, and graphical user interfaces surround us everywhere on various devices. Most human computer interactions and the resulting interfaces are not designed with a cultural mission in mind, but defined by the five largest, most dominant, and most prestigious companies in the information technology industry. By studying visual and structural constraints that we are facing through predefined interaction surfaces, and the standards, norms, influences and styles that have been established, each student designed a typeface and its habitat on this website.

Participating students

Niklas Weisenbach ↘ HMT John Weber ↘ Anomalie Juhee Han ↘ White Forest Michele Sablone ↘ Hypersonic Emre Kızıldelioğlu ↘ Sync Moritz Schneider ↘ What Do You Recognize? Joel Luca Sequeira Ferreira ↘ Modern Balance Sophie Eckhardt ↘ Four Tones Saara Kuum ↘ Mildewy Tizian Repp ↘ Wetlands Felix Harr ↘ Reditus

This website was programmed by Simon Knebl.

The Habitat of a Typeface Today was a seminar at the Communication Department of Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in the summer semester of 2022 supervised by Katharina Köhler.