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Interview with Johan Mosse
Could you provide us with a brief introduction of yourself and what you're currently working on?
My na… read more
My na… read more
Could you provide us with a brief introduction of yourself and what you're currently working on?
My name is Johan Mossé, I'm 23 years old, and I live in Marseille, France. I've been working as a freelance designer since I graduated from the Visual Communication School in 2010. I am also a member of the 5M™ collective, which I created with four schoolmates: We handle both self-initiated projects and commercial orders. I'm currently creating the visual identity for a specific department of Marseille's public architecture school, designing both their printed matter and their website.
Tell us a bit about the Guillemet font, if you would.
Actually, the Guillemet font was designed for my graduation project, which consisted of an experimental newspaper talking about quotes in graphic design. Gothic letters have always been very attractive to me. Many newspapers in Europe and the United States are currently using blackletters on their covers, so I decided to create a new font that would be a kind of quote in itself…
What were your intentions and ideas behind designing the font?
My main intention was to modernize gothic typography in order to make it easier to use nowadays. Despite very strong aesthetic properties, blackletters still remain difficult to read for some people: They can be very complex, and the architecture of the letters is very different from the fonts that people are used to reading in western countries. The challenge was to keep the visual aspect of a gothic font and to make it simpler to read. Guillemet's letters are much closer to usual characters, and they are also more minimalistic.
How would you characterize your style?
I can't pretend to have any style yet, as I'm a beginner when it comes to font design. If I had to characterize Guillemet, I would say it's—at the same time—a strong and very soft font. I really wanted it to be smooth, because, in my opinion, classical gothic fonts are often very austere, visually, and that's what makes them even harder to use.
Why did you choose the name Guillemet for the font?
Guillemet is the french word for "quotation marks" (or inverted commas). I chose this name to create a link between the font and the project it was created for in the first place.
What inspires you?
I know this sounds very cliché, but I'm trying to get inspired by everything around me. I check what's going on in the graphic design community, but still think it is more useful to be aware of what's surrounding us. My main inspiring influence is the city: the handwritten signs you can find there, the amateur design of some shops, the words on walls…
Do you have a working routine, and what are the ideal conditions for you to work in?
I currently work in Marseille, where I rent a very nice place with my friends from 5M™ . Obviously, I don't have enough experience yet to talk about ideal conditions of work, but I can tell you for sure that I really enjoy having sun all year long, along with a big garden at my office!
Tell us a bit about your future plans and projects.
I keep trying to find interesting projects to work on, and I am also working on some new fonts projects at the moment. I hope to be able to show some of them in the next few months.
My name is Johan Mossé, I'm 23 years old, and I live in Marseille, France. I've been working as a freelance designer since I graduated from the Visual Communication School in 2010. I am also a member of the 5M™ collective, which I created with four schoolmates: We handle both self-initiated projects and commercial orders. I'm currently creating the visual identity for a specific department of Marseille's public architecture school, designing both their printed matter and their website.
Tell us a bit about the Guillemet font, if you would.
Actually, the Guillemet font was designed for my graduation project, which consisted of an experimental newspaper talking about quotes in graphic design. Gothic letters have always been very attractive to me. Many newspapers in Europe and the United States are currently using blackletters on their covers, so I decided to create a new font that would be a kind of quote in itself…
What were your intentions and ideas behind designing the font?
My main intention was to modernize gothic typography in order to make it easier to use nowadays. Despite very strong aesthetic properties, blackletters still remain difficult to read for some people: They can be very complex, and the architecture of the letters is very different from the fonts that people are used to reading in western countries. The challenge was to keep the visual aspect of a gothic font and to make it simpler to read. Guillemet's letters are much closer to usual characters, and they are also more minimalistic.
How would you characterize your style?
I can't pretend to have any style yet, as I'm a beginner when it comes to font design. If I had to characterize Guillemet, I would say it's—at the same time—a strong and very soft font. I really wanted it to be smooth, because, in my opinion, classical gothic fonts are often very austere, visually, and that's what makes them even harder to use.
Why did you choose the name Guillemet for the font?
Guillemet is the french word for "quotation marks" (or inverted commas). I chose this name to create a link between the font and the project it was created for in the first place.
What inspires you?
I know this sounds very cliché, but I'm trying to get inspired by everything around me. I check what's going on in the graphic design community, but still think it is more useful to be aware of what's surrounding us. My main inspiring influence is the city: the handwritten signs you can find there, the amateur design of some shops, the words on walls…
Do you have a working routine, and what are the ideal conditions for you to work in?
I currently work in Marseille, where I rent a very nice place with my friends from 5M™ . Obviously, I don't have enough experience yet to talk about ideal conditions of work, but I can tell you for sure that I really enjoy having sun all year long, along with a big garden at my office!
Tell us a bit about your future plans and projects.
I keep trying to find interesting projects to work on, and I am also working on some new fonts projects at the moment. I hope to be able to show some of them in the next few months.