From mid-October to mid-December, we collectively examined surviving posters of R, one of numerous poster printers active between c.1845 to1867 in Paris, a period often excluded in today’s design curriculum. In contrast to his contemporaries, R’s approach was distinctive. Not only were the dimensions of his posters, often exceeding two meters, uncommon, but also the amalgamation of various techniques and the extensive use of multiple colors stand out from today’s perspective. This was possible as R drew upon knowledge derived from printing techniques previously reserved for the manual production of luxurious multicolored wall papers around the turn of the 18th-century. These techniques involved the manual application of color through brushes, stencils or printing forms (clichés) and the reproduction of colored illustrations in various sizes facilitated by the capabilities of the pantograph, a tool to proportionally enlarge or reduce templates.

Throughout the publication, Liad Shadmi systematically investigates these grids, examining the viewer’s changing perspective along with the changing resolution of these hypothetical letterforms. Accompanying the publication is a brief introductory essay by Liad, shedding light on the enduring fascination of graphic designers, programmers, creative coders, and visual artists with this subject. The work was created within the type design course “Letter shapes are entirely described by numbers” in 2022 and was awarded as TDC Tokyo Prize Nominee in Japan, received a Certificate of Typographic Excellence at the New York Type Directors Club 69 and was featured on It’s Nice That.

Based on Octagon – a wood type first shown in George Nesbitt’s First Premium Wood Types Cut by Machinery in 1838 – “Octagon Variable” is a reimagination of the original design by Edwin Allen. Today, the original Octagon wood blocks of a full uppercase set in 8-line (no figures or lowercase seem to have existed) are part of the Rob Roy Kelly collection in Austin, Texas. As part of a first year type design introduction class, we re-drew and re-imagined the design and pushed the already present spatial illusions further collaboratively. The specimen is completed by a short text that traces the origin of the typeface.
“Octagon Variable” was designed by Alexander Royter, Emma Schmalisch, Felix Willnauer, Friederike Temme, Greta Wachholz, Jason Tsiakas, Julia Baskal, Julia Schmidt, Kaja Wetzel, Kateryna Shelevytska, Lara Tamminga, Nina Vierke Liyani, Sania Salem, Sarah-Ann Roehlen, Sofiya Slyusarenko, Stina Scholz, Vanessa Schneider, Zoe Rygus with contributions by Pierre Pane-Farre and Simon Thiefes. “Octagon Variable” is made available under the Open Font License and can be downloaded as static as well as variable font file over here. More information can be found on the git hub repository.