Gestalten

Your name/Company name and a brief introduction:
I was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1986. I spent my childhood drawing, carving wood and doing various other things that ended up being something visual. Graffiti and party flyers were a great inspiration for me during my high school years, but I decided to go to the Technical University of Budapest to learn product design. After a few years I became interested in graphic and type design, so I moved to Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in 2009 to learn typography. At present, I'm studying and working as a freelancer designer.

A short description about the font:
Ogaki is an experimental typeface family for display purposes, great for logos, headlines, posters, or anything in sizes 48 points and up. The design is based on playing with unusual solutions and high contrast in shape detail. Inspiration comes from modernism, calligraphy and traditional terminology of serif typefaces. It's extra heavy and delicate, extravagant and legible at the same time. Heaviness is granted by thick stems and bold shapes lacking real interior negative spaces. Outlines were the key to legibility.

What was the main idea behind designing the font?
I wanted to achieve something really heavy. I started experimenting and ended up with the letter "G" of this face. I liked it very much, so I designed the whole font to fit this style -- heavy and delicate at the same time.

How would you characterize your style?
Basically it’s experimental. I’m trying to do something different every time. Thinking and logic plays an important role for me when designing. There are some areas that I like to use and mix like geometrical design, modernism, graffiti and calligraphy.

How did you come up with the name of the font?
I wanted to use my lowercase "G," since it’s my favorite letter, a short name (max six letters) that was appealing and had a nice visual and sound rhythm. I made up words and Ogaki was my favorite -- nice and Japanese-sounding.

What inspires you?
Good works, nature, friends, family, Japanese graphics, modernism, street art and graffiti, calligraphy, industrial design, walking in the city, music, traveling, the list goes on and on…

Which is the bigger challenge: working on your own personal project or for a client with a strict briefing?
Working for clients is the bigger challenge. Every project I work on is a personal project -- the work for clients is a work for me as well. That’s why it’s harder and more challenging. Personal projects are easier for me; I just do it till I’m satisfied with what I have.

Do you have a working routine? What are your ideal conditions for you to work in?
Since I’m a student and not a fulltime designer, the routine I have is very flexible. I like to work alone in peace, so I used to stay up late, real late, like 7am.

What is the ideal usage of your font?
Display purposes like headlines, logotypes and short texts. It fits various purposes thanks to its eclectic style. Great for fashion magazine headlines, for example, or logotypes with few letters. An even more interesting result can be achieved by using the outline and the solid version at the same time.

How would you describe the state your handwriting is in?
I’ve always tried to make my handwriting faster. Sometimes I change style to tagging or fancy script. I like to experiment with this as with every other thing.

Where does the font end, where does the image begin? Is there a line to draw?
I think every two-dimensional visual thing is an image. So applied fonts are images. A font however is more than image, because it’s not just visual but a system of codes too. Graffiti is more image like than text, because they don’t care about legibility, only style. I don’t like grunge or handwriting fonts, these are fakes I think -- why not real handwriting instead of faking it?

Your future plans/projects?
Make a living out of freelancing. Travel a lot, visit Japan, and see the world. No big plans on projects. I would like to stick to my experimental style, because it keeps me free.