{"id":3310,"date":"2009-07-17T00:00:24","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T07:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/?p=3310"},"modified":"2018-04-17T04:56:52","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T11:56:52","slug":"focus-on-fontstructors-emilio-ignozza-em42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/2009\/07\/17\/focus-on-fontstructors-emilio-ignozza-em42\/","title":{"rendered":"Focus On FontStructors \u2013 Emilio Ignozza (Em42)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(This article was originally published on FontShop<\/a>\u2019s \u201cFontFeed\u201d blog. Many thanks to MonoType<\/a> for permission to reproduce this article here.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This is the third in our series of mini-\u200binterviews with FontStruc\u00adtors<\/a>. In this instalment we talk to Emilio Ignozza<\/a>, better known on FontStruct<\/a> as Em42<\/a>. Emilio Ignozza is a graphic and web designer based in Roma, Italy. He origi\u00adnally studied archi\u00adtecture, and geometry, grids and patterns still play a key role in his design work. Because of his daytime job as a software specialist he has worked on many software-\u200brelated design projects, ranging from software GUI<\/span> to packaging. Typog\u00adraphy is one of his interests, as are photog\u00adraphy, contem\u00adporary archi\u00adtecture, and design. His current main project which he shares with his friend Gi is the blog House42[friends]<\/a>, where they catalogue things they like, things they do, things they\u2019ve seen, and places they\u2019ve been to. On FontStruct Em42 is known for his \u201cpurist\u201d approach, taking advantage of the modularity of the tool and using a minimum number of different brick shapes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Emilio Ignozza (Em42)<\/h3>\n

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Emilio Ignozza has a degree in archi\u00adtecture, yet never practised as an architect. His studies covered human\u00adistic and technical topics which developed his interest in arts, design and visual commu\u00adni\u00adcation. Although he has no formal background in graphic design, he soon discovered many funda\u00admental rules that are valid for archi\u00adtecture and for commu\u00adni\u00adcating a project visually are easily applicable to graphic design as well. Indeed his approach to graphic design is heavily infused by the geomet\u00adrical patterns, grids and modules he learned to apply when laying out archi\u00adtec\u00adtural projects.<\/p>\n

His first experience with type design was preparing lettering for project drawings. The personal computer wasn\u2019t widely estab\u00adlished yet in early 90s, and the pencil drawings on light cardboard required hand-\u200bmade lettering that had to harmonise with the project content.<\/p>\n

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\nPresen\u00adtation of an archi\u00adtec\u00adtural analysis of La Casa delle Armi<\/a>, a fencing hall designed by Luigi Moretti in 1936 with custom lettering by Em42<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nONB<\/span> by\u00a0Em42<\/span><\/p>\n

How did you come upon FontStruct?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I discovered FontStruct prior to its official launch through TypeNeu<\/a>, a blog I regularly visited at the time. For some time I had been working on my first attempt at type design: ONB<\/span>, a not-so-original modernist geometric display sans (check Mostra by Mark Simonson) based on the lettering used for inscrip\u00adtions found on many buildings built during the Fascist years in Roma. The typeface origi\u00adnated from a set of characters I designed for the presen\u00adtation of an archi\u00adtec\u00adtural analysis of La Casa delle Armi<\/a>, a fencing hall designed by Luigi Moretti in 1936. I was strug\u00adgling with spacing, kerning, and optical correction issues. Then there it was \u2013 this tool that allowed you to generate modular fonts just by playing with bricks<\/em>, without dealing with the complex\u00adities of profes\u00adsional font design. I was totally taken and quickly started my first simple experiments.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nInvitation to the SUPER<\/span><\/a> aperitivo for the opening of the Spring shopping season featuring Doodeka<\/a> by\u00a0Em42.<\/span><\/p>\n

You are known in the FontStruct community as being some kind of a purist, because you never seem happy every time new brick shapes<\/a> are added. What is the reasoning behind this?.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even if I generally follow the less-is-more approach my designs are guided by the restraints that are either inherent to the job or self-\u200bimposed, for instance to comply with the project briefing.<\/p>\n

What I like most about FontStruct is the idea to have only a limited amount of basic shapes to design a font with, with no control on spacing nor kerning (basic spacing controls were only added earlier this year). All this may seem severely limiting to what you can achieve, but the real challenge is to create a fully fledged type design within those limita\u00adtions. I suppose that\u2019s why the FontStruct fonts I appre\u00adciate the most are those that clearly reveal that they are based on \u201cbricks\u201d. Conversely I care less about those that tend to be too much bitmap graphics \u2013 any typeface could be rendered this way \u2013 or that try too hard to simulate bezier-\u200bbased shapes.<\/p>\n

Usually I tend to put into evidence the limita\u00adtions of my designs instead of trying to hide them. As it was not possible to define smoothly rounded shapes, I decided to build a set of characters based on a dodecagon in Doodeka<\/a>. And because by defin\u00adition pixel-\u200bbased font cannot have diagonal lines I empha\u00adsised the jagged \u201cstaircase effect\u201d in Escaptionist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nFlyer announcing the sales season at the SUPER<\/span><\/a> concept store featuring Les\u00a0Bains<\/a> by Em42, which is based on the lettering used for the signs in Les Bains des Docks<\/a> by Jean Nouvel, one of the archi\u00adtects Emilio and Gi like the most.<\/span>
\nWith regards to the addition of new bricks to FontStruct, users sometimes ask for special bricks they think they need to complete a design they have in mind. In the beginning FontStruct only had 97 different brick shapes; now there are 167 \u2013 almost twice as many. Ironi\u00adcally we\u2019ve come to the point that it has become so difficult to retrieve bricks in the toolbox that some users keep on asking for bricks that are already available.<\/p>\n

The simplest analogy I can think of are Lego bricks. When I was a kid I used to play a lot with them. Yet when in the late 70s they started to add special bricks for the more complex designs in the Space series<\/a> I started losing interest. Of course it became easier to build more complex models with those special compo\u00adnents, but for me personally all the fun was had in constructing special designs with only those first basic bricks.<\/p>\n

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\nThe Legorama series was inspired by Lego<\/a>, the most famous construction set in the world. Legorama<\/a>, Legorama Fill<\/a>, Legorama Every\u00adwhere<\/a>, Legorama Every\u00adwhere Fill<\/a> by\u00a0Em42.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was browsing through your FontStruc\u00adtions I noticed the similar\u00adities between Dioptical<\/a> and OPTICA<\/span> Normal<\/a>, Manuel Guer\u00adrero\u2019s typeface that won a Certificate of Excel\u00adlence in Type Design at the most recent TDC2<\/span>
\nawards<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know OPTICA<\/span> and there is indeed a resem\u00adblance with Dioptical, even in the name. But I was not influ\u00adenced by Manolo\u2019s work, nor was he by mine. I started on Dioptical in September 23rd (as you can see in the font info) and only
\nbecame aware of Optica in the November 28 edition<\/a> of The Week in Type<\/em> on I Love Typog\u00adraphy<\/a>. I think we both were inspired by the same popular optical trick usually seen in the image library of optical illusions. Yet the two sets
\nseem quite different in my opinion. Surpris\u00adingly enough the comments on BlueTypo<\/a> mention even more type creations similar to Optica and Dioptical. It seems that different people came out with a similar idea around the same period of time without being influ\u00adenced by one another.<\/p>\n

To be honest I did not show Dioptical any earlier because I thought it was not inter\u00adesting enough to share \u2013 and quite hard to download because of the large amount of bricks involved. I left it in my private FontStruct lab, together with other unpub\u00adlished fonts. After the critical success of Optica I decided to give it a try and released it. This shows how poorly I judged what would be of interest to the public, and what\u00a0not.<\/p>\n

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\nSkineskin laser-\u200bengraved leather covers for Moleskine notebooks featuring Dioptical<\/a> and Escap\u00adtionist<\/a> by\u00a0Em42.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tell us more about those classy Skineskin laser-\u200bengraved leather covers<\/a> for Moleskine notebooks<\/a> you designed that are featured on your\u00a0blog<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Helmut Pfanner from Studio Lago asked us to create some artwork for the Skineskin covers, it seemed quite evident for us (me and my partner Gi from House42) to use fonts I created with FontStruct. On the one hand we were curious about using typog\u00adraphy not in a mere graphic design project, but in product design where the text could generate a tactile sensation, as the artwork becomes coarse and slightly embossed when laser-\u200bengraved in leather. On the other hand the covers were for notebooks in which you usually write down notes, and the use of text to decorate them was so \u201cmeta\u201d that we simply could not resist.<\/p>\n

In two of the covers the text creates a pattern decorating the complete leather surface. There were some issues with engraving the Dioptical<\/a> pattern, as the optical effect could be easily lost if the lines became too thick or too thin. Eventually we were very happy with the result: when seen from a distance the pattern seems uniform, and only when you take a closer look you can see letters spelling PER<\/span>–SO<\/span>–NAL<\/span>–NO<\/span>–TES<\/span>. The Escap\u00adtionist<\/a> pattern is twice \u201cmeta\u201d \u2013 the text used to create the pattern is the filler text \u201cLorem Ipsum\u201d created by an on-\u200bline generator.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nSkineskin laser-\u200bengraved leather cover for Moleskine notebooks featuring Monkey Pizzaz<\/a> by Em42.<\/span>
\nThe last cover (not shown on our blog but featured on the Skineskin site) uses the Monkey Pizzaz dingbat face, lining up small monkeys in columns and rows. The font consists of twenty-\u200bsix monkeys with different expres\u00adsions (A is for angry, B is for blind, C is for crazy, etc.). The upper case letters have front view and the lower case the rear, which made it the perfect choice to be used on the front and the back cover respectively.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nLamina<\/a> by Em42 is a typeface composed by arranging side by side slim layers obtained by laminating fat letter\u00adforms.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nProclama<\/a> by Em42 is a reverse italic construc\u00adtivist sans with built-\u200bin banner elements featuring geometric fringes and swirls, for creating propa\u00adganda.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nMagnetor<\/a> by\u00a0Em42<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This article was originally published on FontShop\u2019s \u201cFontFeed\u201d blog. Many thanks to MonoType for permission to reproduce this article here.) This is the third in our series of mini-\u200binterviews with FontStruc\u00adtors. In this instalment we talk to Emilio Ignozza, better known on FontStruct as Em42. Emilio Ignozza is a graphic and web designer based in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focus-on-fontstructors","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3310"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3381,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310\/revisions\/3381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fontstruct.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}