My Type - An Hommage to the written word as such and to my metal type

The written word - a tool like no other

Be it handwriting or type, uncial or sans serif, pictographic or with characters: all the innumerable variations of the written word are a truely human achievement. Within the animal kingdom many sorts of tools are used in various species, but the written word is a tool only man can use.

What makes the difference between a line and a sign?

Where is that boundary separating the character from the by chance shape?

Whoever encounters an unknwon  writing will try to find its pattern, its code - he will try to decipher, he seeks to become able to read it. This might not be an easy task, since with handwriting as well as with type there are variations in each specific character.
One of the very fundamental questions is: what is still a variation within one character and what is the difference between two different characters?

If you never learned to read a certain writing it will not reveal its message to you.

“Wer hat Angst vorm langen ‘s’? (Who is afraid of the long ‘s’?)

80 square playing cards make 40 pairs. The cards are letterpress printed from metal type. The pairs are the same letter in different design, thus A goes with A and Z goes with Z. The characters are taken from the old black letter style fonts and the Roman style fonts. All playing cards are made entirely by hand using strong bookbinding board covered either with red or green paper on their back. The cards have been cut by hand - as shown above.

All cards come in a beechwood box together with the letterpress printed sheet showing the correct pairs and a list of names of fonts used. Designed and printed in 2003 in a limited edition of 44 copies - numbered and signed by the artist.