Bernd

Bernd Volmer is a type designer and font engineer based in Berlin. He studied graphic design at ArtEZ in Arnhem and type design at type]media at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. His background spans both the technical and expressive sides of typography — from font engineering and scripting to exploring calligraphy both analog and digitally, drawing on paper and in vector outlines. Bernd runs a small font foundry called Show Me Fonts, works as a freelancer on all font related things and previously worked in various roles within the type industry, gaining insight into how fonts are designed, built, tested and used at scale. His work often explores the overlap between design and technology — where structure, language, aesthetic and code intersect.

Events with this speaker

Day 2

17:35

40m

Variable Fonts — It Was Never About File Size

A brief history of typographic misbehavior or intended and unintended uses of variable fonts. Nine years after the introduction of variable fonts, their most exciting uses have little to do with what variable fonts originally were intended for and their original promise of smaller file sizes. The talk looks at how designers turned a pragmatic font format into a field for experimentation — from animated typography and uniwidth button text to pattern fonts and typographic side effects with unintended aesthetics. Using examples from projects such as TypoLabs, Marjoree, Kario (the variable font that’s used as part of the 39C3 visual identity), and Bronco, we’ll explore how variable fonts evolved from efficiency tools into creative systems — and why the most interesting ideas often emerge when technology is used in unintended ways.