B is for Berlin

Marmite Defontes newsletter #13

Good day people,

Summer, summertime… Hope you all can enjoy a bit of sun and a bit of holidays. I’m making this edition mostly about Berlin because I’ve just spent a week beginning of July the German capital to attend Berlin Letters: the European conference for type, letter and calligraphy enthusiasts. I’ve packed as well some visuals on the typefaces I’m currently working on. Enjoy!

Here’s the menu

1. Berlin Vibes
2. Type Picture Drop
3. Design Nuggets
4. Music Break

Reading time: ±4 minutes

Berlin Vibes

Berlin Letters 2024. This is the second edition of the festival. The first one happened in 2019 and then you know… Stuff happened. I was very excited to attend the new edition, just as well as the other participants. Three days of conferences and workshops, but mostly spending time with fellow letter lovers.

“Meeting people is easy,” as they say, and meeting people in real life is better! I got the chance to meet people from Practica Program: Sol, Christine and Tania (and, of course, Francis). We only met online in 2021 and 2022. I also met with Elliot, along with his friends Emma Luczyn and Jamie Clarke.

Another easy way to meet people - when in a German-speaking country - is to spot the Froggies! This was my way to meet with Léa, Céline and Thierry,

Besides spending some really nice days in Berling, here are my two key takeaways from the event.

Ideal setup

Everything was precisely organised for us attendees. The program was tackling various and broad topics as well as niche and sharp practices. The balance of speakers and their content was top-notch! The venue was super nice as well. Once you acknowledge it was the first crematorium of Berlin, you can appreciate the rooms, garden and genuine serenity emerging from the space. Size-wise, the event is - from my perspective - a success. Large enough to attract a diverse audience and small enough to keep it friendly and accessible. Thank you Chris, Ulrike, Claudia, _Nils and all the volunteers for making it happen.

The topic I’ve come back with: memory

Across the different talks, Chris asked us if we saw a common thread. For me it is a notion tied to knowledge transmission. How do we record, share and learn from others through the years. Some talks touched on the hardship of finding historical traces for script-related material (Thai or Ukrainian Cyrillic for instance). Other presentations touched on teaching or learning and the tools and documented practices, or sometimes the lack there is. Complimentary to these, the notion of keeping a practice alive (cultural heritage) or having you work becoming socio-political voice expanded the discussions beyond creativity and craft. The final keynote presentation by Chris was a majestic and powerful summary of all this: transcend our work and make it purposeful, for the greater good. Inspiring.

Type Picture Drop

Making progress on Monneau Mono character set and started doing mockups

I’ve prototype this font with variable connecting strokes. Codename: Munk. An unconventional mix of blackletter, connected script and variable font.

Design Nuggets

1️⃣ Who killed the world?
Journalist Alvin Chang studied 1’600 sci-fi movies from the 50s until today. Experience the animated and illustrated report of this intriguing research. A 5-minute video is also available for our lazy-scrolling-selves.

2️⃣ Wooden toys
While playing the tourist in Berlin, I spend time into the amazing shop of the Fotografiska Museum. They curate a very fine selection of art-related books, posters and goodies. It was love at first sight when I saw the Candylab wooden pieces. I’m a child at heart and their products immediately struck that chord.

3️⃣ Words of Type lectures and events
The project by Lisa Huang is growing. Both the community and the number of events. I already attended the Thai and Hanzi lectures and need to watch the Devanagari one. Next up: a live discussion early September with a great panel, a lecture on Hangeul in October and a lecture on Greek in November.

4️⃣ The Making of the Iconic Wipeout 2097 Soundtrack
Nostalgic vibes here: blending video game history and electronic music. This short documentary by the wonderful people at Noclip recaps how the amazing soundtrack for the game came together with bands like Daft Punk, Underworld or The Prodigy. And of course, graphics by The Designers Republic™.

Music Break

🥁 The Yussef Dayes Experience on KEXP
British drummer Yussef Dayes performed with his band at the KEXP studio last November. A great catch up on their tunes as they tour in Europe right now.

🇨🇴 Balthvs Live at the Rooftop
37 minutes of funky psychedelic music from Colombia. This set was recorded in Bogotá in 2021 and perfectly fits any summer vibe. Enjoy!

⛷️ Skier and Yeti “Fretles Elanka”
Beware: groovy and electric sounds from the compact and energy Serbian duo. It’s not every day you can watch a skier and a yeti perform on stage.

Until next time! 😎

Guillaume

PS: Welcome to the new subscribers (got a tiny wave of you recently) 👋