Bertin

Designed by Roman Seban, the modular typeface Bertin is inspired by the work of the famous French cartographer Jacques Bertin and Dutch graphic designer Jurriaan Schrofer. In 1967, Jacques Bertin (1918–2010) published Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps, a fundamental treatise in contemporary cartographic thinking. In this book, he established a series of parameters for representing information, defining six visual variables which he used to construct his graphical system. In 1973, Jurriaan Schrofer (1926–1990) designed the cover of a reprint of Semiology of Graphics. He proposed a typographic application of Bertin’s graphical system. His typeface, constructed on a grid with a highly rigorous approach, typographically illustrates the six visual variables defined by the cartographer. With Bertin, Roman Seban presents a synthetic and revitalized interpretation of both the cartographer’s and the graphic designer’s work. Thanks to variable font technology, the different styles of the typeface combine multiple axes of visual variables. [205.tf]