June 13, 2018
TDC at Parsons: Nina Stössinger – Journey to the Dark Side of Contrast
TDC Talk at Parsons: June 13, 2018
“Journey to the Dark Side of Contrast” with Nina Stössinger
It is one of the most fundamental conventions in Latin typeface design that verticals are made thicker than horizontals. But what if they aren’t? Designers who have challenged this rule often emphasize the outrageous strangeness of letters wearing their thicks and thins the “wrong” way. So is “reversed contrast” just a recurring but ultimately useless provocation – or might this largely neglected quadrant of design space yet yield promising, perhaps even useful new solutions? A tale of convention and contrast, exploration and experiment, of breaking and making the rules of design.
Nina Stössinger is a Senior Typeface Designer at Frere-Jones Type. Originally from Basel in Switzerland, she graduated in multi-media design from Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle/Germany. She went on to receive a CAS in Type Design from Zurich University of the Arts, and an MA in Type and Media from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Nina teaches type design at Yale University School of Art, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Type Directors Club. Her published type designs include Conductor (with Tobias Frere-Jones), Nordvest, and FF Ernestine.
This evening also featured Tobias Frere-Jones. You can view his video separately.
Special thanks to Parsons for supporting this evening’s event.