Zwoelf typeface

Overview Process

Problem:	Develop personal artistic style font into a more conventional typeface.

Zwoelf type design stems from a letter created by Oleg Pashchenko for the poetry book called “They Talk.” Modified in several ways, the lettering gained readability and a more neutral look. This typeface combines Modern and Gothic styles, ugliness and beauty, the horrifying and the funny. Typographers may highlight any of this.

Zwoelf features elements that can be found in both Roman and Gothic styles, but has no real historical prototype. It creates coarse body copy that feels like blackletters. The type is well-suited for use with rough line graphics. Zwoelf is a good choice for short texts, headings, witchcraft potion recipes, madrigals, spells and treasure map naming.

Oleg Pashchenko

I drew the letters with a vague, but definitely present idea of blacklettering of some kind. Forced exteriorization into Cyrillics, Illustrator treatment, Lebedev’s interference and other aggressive influences made it look the way it does. This is a remnant of the blackletter type, a blackletter bastard, melted blackletter form, blacklettering body that’s been burried under the sea of pain for a thousand years.