Responses by Nina Stössinger, typeface designer, Frere-Jones Type.
Background: Cassis is a generous, soulful sans serif that presents a powerful voice for branding, identity and titling work. It’s versatile though—as a retail typeface should be—and useful beyond these target applications. It is sharp and generously proportioned; it feels simple and straightforward but gestural and warm, and it projects an affable confidence.
Design thinking: I aimed to push the limits of how “clean” a geometric sans serif needs to be, aiming to make it feel active, personable and dynamic without compromising on its usefulness. Curves are slightly “too” inflated, terminals and crossbars reach a little “too” far, and the contrast nearly tips over, pushing just a tiny bit beyond a point that feels safe and static. I decided to optimize the fonts for slightly larger sizes, to be able to pack more flavor in and to allow for a really dramatic range of weights. This also translates to increased density and tighter spacing.
Challenges: Geometric sans serifs are a crowded field and tend to be rather bland and lifeless. So, it seemed really crucial to infuse Cassis with a good serving of flavor and a recognizable character—without getting carried away with making individual shapes too cute or quaint or making the whole design too loud or too idiosyncratic to be truly useful.
Favorite details: I especially enjoy the lowercase a, which evolved from a clumsy “potbellied” form to this generous, dynamic shape that takes its cues from the lowercase s—another favorite of mine and a key letter to the design, along with its uppercase counterpart. I also love how the contrast in the round letters—O, C and G—nearly seems to flip over especially in the middling weights and how those letters sit next to the blocky straight shapes like the H and the almost-too-wide E. There’s a self-possessed tension there, something just slightly dissonant, that makes the letters feel solid and alive at the same time.
New lessons: Cassis was made over eleven years, so the project has spanned more than half of my type-designing career. Many of these shapes were rethought and redrawn many times over the years. I’m honestly glad I didn’t manage to finish it sooner; I would have been less able to articulate the concept clearly or do it justice in those earlier years.
Visual influences: I was fascinated by historical lettering in public space that follows a geometric model. It tends to combine a simple and straightforward idea of what letterforms are with a good dash of flavor: be it through historical idiosyncrasies or inconsistencies in interpreting geometry, the way they were physically created, or the way they weathered and degraded.
Cassis took inspiration from signage and sign painting across Europe and the United States. From European influences, I looked mainly to my native Switzerland as well as Belgium, as the street signs of Antwerp were an initial ingredient. These trended a little more quaint and static. From the United States, I mainly looked at New York City, where I found similar shapes with more vigor and vivacity.
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