You probably have seen several of his typefaces on MyFonts before. Maybe you even purchased one or more of them. For almost 10 years, he was selling his fonts on Monotype platforms. This year, Berlin-born and -based designer René Bieder launched his own independent shop for his typefaces. And it is full of treasures.
When the idea to sell the typefaces of his studio independently grew in René about two years ago, he immediately knew that he would have to raise the bar for such a huge project and he started to revise some of his most popular designs. At first, he planned to do only a few minor adjustments. But as time progressed, he realized that if you change just a few small details in the system that is a typeface, you might as well rework the whole family and include even more adjustments. All of a sudden, he found himself jumping back and forth between revisions of six of his existing typefaces while also working on new designs – with the positive side effect that he could always look at the work with fresh eyes. The result? A whopping total of 14 revised or new type families, designed within two years. Since October 2022, René has been publishing one of the eight completely new families every month. So there’s even more to come.
With that many designs of outstanding quality, it is incredibly hard to pick a few favorites. I will give it a try, but promise me to look at the typefaces in the library yourself.
Neue Campton is the redesign of one of René’s most successful typefaces. The challenge in reworking the geometric sans-serif was to keep the balance between creating an expressive, new aesthetic while also keeping the original spirit of Campton alive.
With Neue Faktum, a grotesk that combines organic and mechanical shapes into a cohesive design, the process of revising the family proved to be easier, because the design details of the typeface were distinctive enough already. So, René primarily redrew all the curves.
Kreol was the first one of the new designs to be released. The serif typeface comes with gorgeous high-contrast strokes and a sturdy, sometimes crisp, but always elegant appearance.
Spyk takes some of the details that can be found in Kreol even further and turns up the volume into an extroverted, lively, and razor-sharp design. This might well be a TDC winner in 2023. ;)
Trial fonts are available for all typefaces. And if you hurry up and buy one of the new type families, you will get a limited edition poster for free.
❦
This post is part of the Independent Type Foundry Advent Calendar 2022
~
