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It seemed interesting to us to make you discover the profiles of our guests. Discover Just Van Rossum & Jérémie Hornus' interview.
Just Van Rossum is a software developer with a type design background. He was the co-creator of RoboFog, initiated the DrawBot and FontTools/TTX, wrote the FontGoggles application, and is now developing Fontra with Black[Foundry].
Jérémie Hornus is the co-founder of Black[Foundry] and has been busy with World and CJK fonts projects over the last 8 years. His focus is on creating original typefaces and developing tools and techniques for type design, in addition to managing the development of Fontra and CJK fonts at Black[Foundry] with innovation in mind.
Interview
What does a usual day look like for you?
Just Van Rossum I work from home, and have a dedicated desk.
Jérémie Hornus I always start the day with a strong black coffee, I quickly check the news, and play some music.
What is the first thing you do when you sit down at your desk? Could you describe your typical day? Once at my desk, I check for emails and continue working on the to-do list of the previous day, often starting with emails. I like working from home in the morning and go to the office in the afternoon.
Are you someone who listens to music while working?
Jérémie Hornus I listen to several kind of music from classical to electronic; I like working with the music on; helps me stay focus in a meditative way.
Do you consult any news sources or social media?
Jérémie Hornus I ‘listen to the noise' of the world through Twitter (X) and Le Monde application. The type community moved away from Twitter now, I tried to connect to the mastodon type social thing but I find it difficult to engage as we all used to do on Twitter, which is a bit of a shame. I think I miss it.
Just Van Rossum I’m part of the typo.social community, a Mastodon instance for type-oriented people run by volunteers. This gives me a reasonably good subset of my peers to communicate with. Mastodon in general helps me to keep up what’s going on in my main fields of interest: type design, font engineering, Python development, web development and creative coding. I am somewhat active on Instagram, barely active on Facebook, not active anymore on Twitter, passive on LinkedIn, and active on Mastodon, especially typo.social.
What do you do to step away from work?
Jérémie Hornus After almost 20 years in the type business, I definitely need to step away on a regular basis, I like playing tennis, piano, and grow of my bonsaï trees.
What drives you to create new typefaces?
Jérémie Hornus It can be a sudden inspiration striking, like the urge to give shape to ideas; or a more practical need to fill an empty space in my works, something I have never done before, or providing my type repertoire with a fresh take on some classic genre.
“I strongly believe in the power of collaboration in typeface design (for teaching but also work within foundries and type designers), and assisting tools making the repetitive tasks easier.”
– Jérémie Hornus
How do you think AI will impact type design?
Jérémie Hornus I think it may take the shape of assistance tools for type designers, and might make the job easier, faster; but also more challenging to distinguish genuine creation. Nevertheless I think I am looking forward to seeing such tools come to the real world for type designers. Typeface design is a small market, and AI development is expensive, so it is uncertain this will actually happen.
Just Van Rossum No doubt there will be some effect, but right now AI is mostly overhyped.
Are you someone who draws type classics, or seeks to invent new forms?
Jérémie Hornus I like both definitely; but I am more inclined to invent new forms (when inspiration comes), so far I haven’t been doing actual revivals or digging so much into old type specimens for a starting point. I am more driven by the teaching I received at Le Scriptorium de Toulouse with Bernard Arin, where writing and calligraphy throughout places and eras (and the writing tool itself) are the generator for typographic letter forms. I also like to take inspiration from the modern tools and technologies we have with computers nowadays.
Can you tell us anything about the state of the font market today?
Just Van Rossum Future Fonts has found an innovative way of font marketing. I quite like the ripple they have caused in the landscape.
What typefaces do you find to be the most innovative or interesting?
Jérémie Hornus I have always been in love with the works of Hermann Zapf, and his legacy. I am also found of Gerard Unger’s works and Petr van Blokland’s Proforma (for example) that were paving the way for the era of digital typography we are in.
Just Van Rossum David Jonathan Ross is one of my favorite contemporary type designers. He’s just so prolific and inventive, and with his font-of-the-month-club has shown excellent marketing skills as well.
What are your thoughts on open source fonts?
Just Van Rossum In my view there are two kinds of free fonts: free fonts made by volunteering amateurs, and free fonts funded by companies. The latter category has had a profound impact on the font market, as some clients will now settle for (say) a font from Google Fonts instead of licensing from a commercial foundry. Google Fonts did have one significant positive effect, in that it played a crucial role in popularizing web fonts, so it also helped opening up a new market.
Jérémie Hornus I think it’s great to have free system fonts and online served fonts for individuals, you need some typographic choice to start with after all. However it might have reduced the perceived value of fonts by providing companies with ‘quick and free solutions’. Nevertheless the reality is also that there is an economy around the open-source fonts that often need tweaking and remastering to fit the actual needs of professionals.
In 5—10 years, what do you hope to see in the development of font editing software?
Jérémie Hornus I strongly believe in the power of collaboration in typeface design (for teaching but also work within foundries and type designers), and assisting tools making the repetitive tasks easier. Integrated proofing tools could also develop much further. In these 3 areas I hope Fontra will have some things to bring.
Just Van Rossum I hope that Fontra can develop into a fully online collaborative tool, under a sustainable business model. We like to say: “like Figma for fonts”, or “like Google Docs for fonts”.
“Not all designers have to learn to code, but there is a lot a coding talent among designers. If that’s you, embrace that, and continue to develop those skills.“
– Just Van Rossum
In developing Fontra, was there a particular "a-ha" moment for you?
Just Van Rossum We had the need for a better and faster successor of RoboCJK (a plugin for RoboFont) and we contemplated various technologies and approaches. One of them was to build a browser-based font editing platform. I started to build a proof of concept, which developed into a prototype, which continued to develop towards the almost-production-ready version of Fontra that it is today. There wasn’t a single a-ha moment, but once we decided to go all-in with web technology, every step along the way seemed to confirm that this was the right choice for us.
Do you remember when you decided to pursue your career in design? What made you choose this?
Jérémie Hornus That’s when I discovered and experienced drawing on tracing paper I think, stabilising the letterforms I had written with broad nib pen, back in the 2000’s at Le Scriptorium de Toulouse. I then pushed further and discovered that there is a whole international type industry.
Just Van Rossum As a teenager, when I had to choose further education after high school, I doubted between something engineer-y and something related to design. I ended up choosing to study graphic design, and self-educated myself towards a more engineer-y career. I’m glad I took that route, as I feel this gave me a fairly unique position at the “intersection of technology and design”, as the trope goes.
Who are the teachers, mentors or professionals who had the most impact on you?
Just Van Rossum I studied at KABK in The Hague, where Gerrit Noordzij was no doubt my most influential teacher. He had an open mind for new technologies, a very original and well-articulated view on type design, and somehow saw my potential (at the interection of... etc) before I did so myself.
Jérémie Hornus Bernard Arin, Rodolphe Giuglardo in Toulouse, France; Then Gerry Leonidas, Fiona Ross, and Gerard Unger in Reading UK.
Do you sketch on paper or tablet before moving on to the digital workflow?
Jérémie Hornus It’s often just doodles on a paper I can find at hand, then I switch rapidly to the computer, sometimes directly on the screen as well.
Just Van Rossum I feel the best workflow is when you can switch freely between a sketch-like approach (whether on paper or on a tablet) and the more CAD-like model of manipulating vectors.
Do you have any pieces of advice for someone who wants to become a type designer?
Just Van Rossum Not all designers have to learn to code, but there is a lot a coding talent among designers. If that’s you, embrace that, and continue to develop those skills.
Thank you very much Jérémie and Just!
– Interview by Burke Smithers
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