Skip to content

Renaissance

A display face drawn from paintings
Twelve capitals so far, each one begun in a painting. A fragment is isolated, stripped of colour and volume, and left as contour — then built into a letterform until neither the drawing nor the letter can be taken away without the other collapsing.
Type
Display typeface
Foundry
KERS
Year
2025
Format
OpenType · .otf
Character set
12 of 39 drawn — release pending
Role
Type design, art direction
The R standing alone at full height, drawn in a single hairline: Michelangelo's David seen from behind, the curls and shoulders closing the bowl and the braced leg carrying the diagonal tail.

Source

Each letter begins in a painting. A fragment is isolated, stripped of colour and volume, and left as contour — then built into a letterform.

Raphael's Sistine Madonna, cropped to the foot of the picture: the two winged putti leaning on the ledge under a bank of cloud.The finished A: the two putti sit in the feet of the letter, one under each stroke, their wings folding up into the apex.
A putti
Botticelli's Birth of Venus, cropped to the head: Venus turned in three-quarter view with the long hair blown across her shoulder.The finished B: the head and raised arm fill the upper bowl, the fall of hair sweeps through the lower one.
B venus, hair
Leonardo's Mona Lisa, cropped to the head and shoulders, the veil lying over the hair.The finished C: the veil carries the curve of the letter and the profile closes the aperture.
C profile, veil
A painted architectural detail: a Corinthian capital on a fluted column carrying a coffered vault seen in sharp perspective.The finished D: the fluted column stands as the stem, the capital sitting where the bowl springs off it and the coffering banding the curve.
D corinthian capital
A jewelled gold crown held in two hands above a head, photographed from slightly below.The finished E: the crown becomes the upper arm of the letter and its points fall where the serifs would.
E crown
A carved stone relief of the Florentine lily, the petals curling out of an acanthus base.The finished F: the acanthus climbs the stem from the root and the outer petal opens across the upper arm like a wing.
F acanthus, wing
A painted detail: the child's hands closed around a split pomegranate, the seeds showing.The finished G: the vine turns the bowl of the letter and the split fruit sits at the spur.
G pomegranate, vine
Botticelli's Venus at full length, standing on the shell with her weight on one leg.The finished I: the standing figure is the whole stem of the letter, the serifs closing at the feet.
I standing figure
Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, cropped to the two hands reaching towards each other across the gap.The finished N: the two arms are the stems and the gap between the fingertips falls on the diagonal.
N the two hands
Botticelli's portrait of Dante in profile, the laurel wreath lying over the red hood.The finished O: the laurel closes into a ring, every leaf drawn separately, the stems tied off at the base.
O laurel wreath
Michelangelo's David, cropped to the head and shoulders seen from the side.The finished R: the head fills the bowl and the leg becomes the tail, braced out past the stem.
R david, head
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, the head turned over the shoulder under a wound blue turban.The finished S: the cloth of the turban takes both curves of the letter and the pearl marks the lower terminal.
S turban, pearl

Method

Four stages, shown on three letters. The contour is lifted from the painting; the skeleton is what remains of the letter without it.

The three stages cycling on one letter: the contour of the two hands, then the bare N skeleton, then the two fitted together.
01 Process
The contour for N: the same two hands as a single hairline, everything but the outline gone.
02 Contour
The skeleton for N: the bare letter, two stems and a diagonal, with nothing of the painting in it.
03 Skeleton
The finished N: contour and skeleton fitted together, the fingertips falling on the diagonal.
04 Letter
N the two hands · Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam
The three stages cycling on one letter: the contour of the head and hair, then the bare B skeleton, then the two fitted together.
01 Process
The contour for B: the head, shoulder and fall of hair reduced to one hairline.
02 Contour
The skeleton for B: stem and two bowls, drawn without any of the figure.
03 Skeleton
The finished B: the head filling the upper bowl and the hair the lower one.
04 Letter
B venus, hair · Botticelli, The Birth of Venus
The three stages cycling on one letter: the contour of the laurel wreath, then the bare oval skeleton, then the two fitted together.
01 Process
The contour for O: every leaf of the wreath as a single closed hairline.
02 Contour
The skeleton for O: a bare oval ring, nothing else.
03 Skeleton
The finished O: the wreath closed into the ring with the tie at its base.
04 Letter
O laurel wreath · Botticelli, Portrait of Dante

Threshold

Two floors, not one. Below the first the letter breaks; below the second it holds, but the drawing that justifies it has closed up.

Four B's standing on one baseline at rising cap heights — 72, 120, 200 and 360 px. At 72 the counters have filled in and the face inside the bowl is a smudge; at 120 the letter reads but the hair has closed up; at 360 every strand of the drawing stands separate.
72 below floor · 120 letter floor · 200 drawing floor · 360 display
  • 120 px — letter floorUnder this the counters fill and B stops being a B. Nothing below it is usable at all
  • 200 px — drawing floorAbove 120 the letter survives, but the face, the hair and the wreath collapse into grain. Below 200 there is no reason to use this typeface rather than any other serif

Sizes given as cap height in px. Point sizes follow once the UPM is corrected to 1000.

Delta

The same paragraph, the same text face, the same leading. One letter is the only difference between the two columns.

01 Without

Renaissance painting is built in layers. Beneath the colour there is a drawing, and beneath the drawing a scaffold of proportions no viewer was ever meant to see. These letters come from that hidden layer. Each begins as a fragment lifted from a panel or a fresco — a hand, a wreath, a fall of hair — reduced until only its contour remains, then fitted to the skeleton of a letter until neither can be taken away without the other collapsing.

02 With

The R drawn as an initial six lines deep: David's head and shoulders filling the bowl, the leg carrying the tail down past the baseline.

enaissance painting is built in layers. Beneath the colour there is a drawing, and beneath the drawing a scaffold of proportions no viewer was ever meant to see. These letters come from that hidden layer. Each begins as a fragment lifted from a panel or a fresco — a hand, a wreath, a fall of hair — reduced until only its contour remains, then fitted to the skeleton of a letter until neither can be taken away without the other collapsing.

Drop cap set 6 lines deep — 168 px cap height. A conventional three-line initial would sit at 81 px, under both floors, and the drawing would be lost entirely. This face does not take a book-standard initial; it needs a generous one.

Applied

One letter at a time. Nowhere in this strip is the typeface used for reading — it opens, it marks, it signs, then it gets out of the way.

A 50 × 70 poster: PALAZZO STROZZI set small at the head, the drawn O filling the sheet as a laurel wreath, and Ordine e Misura at the foot.
01 Poster50 × 70
A 150 × 220 book cover: the drawn B above The Hidden Drawing set in two lines, with EDIZIONI KERS small at the foot.
02 Cover150 × 220
A wine label: the drawn G with its pomegranate and vine over Rosso Toscano, the year letter-spaced beneath it.
03 Label200 mm minimum
ORDINE set on one line in the drawn capitals, hand-spaced: the laurel O, David's R, the column D, the standing figure I, the two hands N and the crowned E.
04 TitleExhibition title · one line, never a paragraph · hand-spaced

Words are spaced by ink width — the file's advances are all a flat 600 and still collide.

Press

The drawing was lifted off a painted surface; it goes back onto one. Screen printing sets its own floor, and it is not the same as the screen's.

Thinnest line at print size

The screen positive at 1:1: the drawn N on film, the two hands running down the diagonal, with a registration cross at each of the four corners.
01 Screen positive1:1 · registration at corners
  • Book cover — 40 mm cap0.12 mm · under mesh
  • A3 poster — 80 mm cap0.25 mm · at the limit
  • 50 × 70 poster — 160 mm cap0.50 mm · holds
  • Wall piece — 400 mm cap1.25 mm · holds

Measured stroke is 0.31% of cap height at its thinnest. A 120T mesh resolves about 0.25 mm. Below an 80 mm cap the finest lines drop out of the stencil and the drawing breaks up.

Screen floor was 200 px. Press floor is 80 mm. Same cause, two media — the drawing is thinner than either can carry small.

Reveal

The ornament is laid down from the root up, contour after contour, so the letter is not revealed but grown. Nothing fades in — the line is drawn.

F · acanthus, wing · drawn from the root up

Five states of the F standing on one baseline, each a further stage of the same drawing: the acanthus root alone, the stem climbing out of it, the wing opening across the upper arm, the leaves closing along the stem, and the finished letter. A tick on the measure line sits under each.
0.38 s · 16% — 0.91 s · 38% — 1.44 s · 60% — 1.97 s · 82% — 2.40 s · 100%

Built as a stroke on the outline — the same path a plotter or a cutter would follow, so the animation is not an effect added afterwards but the drawing repeating itself.

2.4 s, ease-out. Runs once when the block scrolls into view.