A Graphic Life: Atipo®: design studio and type foundry (english version)

Atipo is small studio located in Gijón in the north of Spain. This studio wanted to make a more personal project that allowed them to develop work from other perspectives, and be able to freely combine all the disciplines they love, such as typography, photography, illustration, video...
Their works, are sophisticate, clear, with a lot off recherche and reference. I hop you will appreciate the font they create. You can download those for free.
I am thankful to their participation.

. Please tell us a bit about your professional background.

Atipo is formed by Raul Garcia and Ismael Gonzalez Pomar. We meet each other during study in fine art at Salamanca. We are graduate in Graphic Design and Audiovisual. After several years working in different studios, web and branding agencies, we decided (during the middle of a crisis, early in 2010) to implement our project staff. We define ourselves as a multidisciplinary study and we try to profit of all things we love in each of our projects, either through the illustration, video or typeface. These two years have been very intense but very grateful, we have achieved in a short time that our work had been seen in numerous blogs and publications. In addition we have received several prizes: a Laus, a Brand New Award, a European Design Award and five Motiva awards.

. How did you start designing Bariol type?

There are not many rounded fonts and most of them derived from a non-rounded typefaces. We decided that Bariol were a rounded type from the beginning. The development was long and the structure suffered several modifications. The look now is a mixture of Helvetica with DIN but with an personal air, as well as versatile and highly readable.
FREE FONT: Download Bariol Regular for free by just paying with Tweet.

. What was the most challenging part in creating Cassannet type ?

Cassannet is a font based on the style of lettering seen on Cassandre posters and the biggest challenge was to collect the spirit of the Art Nouveau style and give a modern look in the same time. We believe it is a type that works well as a display, especially in editorial design but we have seen it working in different ways, such as logo or printed on a poster.

FREE FONT: Download Cassannet for free by just paying with a Tweet

. In what kind of media would you like your typeface to be used? Only for the website with font-face?

To date we have developed three typefaces: Calendas, that it was born to be read and for print, in fact we have expanded the family for the redesign of Town & Country magazine; Cassannet, a tribute to Cassandre and Bariol, a rounded typography. As graphic designers we develope fonts thinking on print, they both work well on screen, especially Bariol, that we've seen on web pages and mobile apps.

. What do you like the most about the type design process?

The first impulse, the creative phase, when the idea come from is the best time. To draw some glyphs and writing the first words is most comforting. Then comes the most tedious part: complete all the font, spacing, kerning, OpenType programming, etc..

. How do you go through the process of a new type design? Are there any certain steps that you follow during the process?

Inspiration can come from many places. A typeface can be based on an older one, to came from a simple sketch or to be born to a specific need. Once we know “what” we want and “why”, the first step is to draw some glyphs. Ideally, is to begin with lowercases, which are those that define the character of the typeface, usually the “n”, “a” or “o” (depends on the designer) and from this point to compose some words and see how they work. After we will design uppercase, numbers, accents, punctuation symbols, etc. until complete the font. We can adjust the spacing at the same time that we are drawing the glyph or later, depends on each one. Then is the turn of the kerning, OpenType programming... Well, a long process until the font is ready.

. What make your "buzz" around your type ?

We are not a typical type foundry, we are a graphic design studio, and to develop fonts is a discipline more that we take as a way of promotion. Our first type, Calendas, was born from a personal project, then we allow download it for free and afterwards we did the project for Town & Country. To promote Cassannet & Bariol we used "Pay with a Tweet" formula to reach as people as possible. You can download Cassannet family and then give a donation, in the case of Bariol, Regular weight is for free and if you like it you can buy all the family paying what you want. Success lies in providing a worthwhile product at an affordable price.
Download Bariol Regular for free by just paying with Tweet.
Download Cassannet for free by just paying with a Tweet

. Do you have plans for a new type design in the near future?

For now we want to expand Bariol family. We hope to bring to light before the end of the year additional weights and italics versions. Then we'll see.