Seawitches is a bi-annual print publication that tells stories inspired by water. Each issue has a guest art director who shapes it into almost a different publication every time, but keeps the same approach of diversity and inclusion.
For issue 5, Leah Koransky chose Temeraire, designed by 2016 Gerard Unger Scholarship winner Quentin Schmerber. When we asked Leah for her view on the typeface, she explained that she ’wanted something that had curves but wasn’t overly feminized.’
“Seawitches tells stories about water, and Temeraire captures a sense of movement while still being highly readable and structurally sound. As an editorial typeface, I found it to be a real workhorse – I mixed different cuts together (sometimes within a single word) to customize feature openers and other display text. I used the regular and italic cuts in running text, and they held up beautifully on the printed page. Temeraire has a sense of history but is thoroughly modern, well-designed, and a pleasure to work with. I'm also a fan of the Adobe Fonts licensing option; it helps me streamline my workflow and is a practical consideration that I find important.”
“Seawitches is a female, LGBTQ+, BIPOC-centric publication, and as the designer of the zine, I try to make sure our contributors represent the diversity that we support. Women and people of color are notoriously under-represented in type design, so when I found out that Type Together was co-founded by Veronika Burian, I felt that this was in line with Seawitches’ overall mission.”
Quentin Schmerber’s Temeraire serif font family was not designed to be invisible. It is a typographic exploration meant to be seen — with its beauty, one could even say beheld. While some fonts aim to be as easily ignored as possible, Temeraire is offered as a gift to wide-eyed readers with its anything-but-boring character and its conspicuous inconsistency in styles.
You can see Temeraire in use here and here; buy a poster featuring Temeraire or read the interview with Quentin where he explains the process behind Temeraire.
Credits
All photos copyright 2020 Leah Koransky
Artwork on featured spreads is by Miriam Mosqueda and Kate Barattini
leahkoransky.com
seawitcheszine.com
TypeTogether is an indie type foundry committed to excellence in type design with a focus on editorial use. Additionally, TypeTogether creates custom type design for corporate use. We invite you to browse our library of retail fonts or contact us to discuss custom type design projects.
