Standard Deviations:
On Rethinking Functionality
Historically, type design and technology have always been intertwined, with each technological advancement bringing with it a whole new generation of typographic standards. The story of typography is often traced back to Gutenberg and his printing press. But rather than revisiting these well-worn narratives, we want to set the stage and discuss how Baumer handles the relationship between typography and the standardizations of both the past and today. Standards in typography permeate a wide variety of avenues, whether it's the type of material the physical letters are made out of, or which characters are included in the character set, or what the design of the letters themselves should look like. In today’s world, the limitations that have historically accompanied technology are much less restrictive, leaving designers a pool of possibility to deal with. Erkin Karamemet has navigated this pool, drawing on forgotten standards of the past and proposing some new of his own.
With many years of exploring the possibilities of the grotesk genre under his belt, Erkin set himself the challenge of working within new parameters and constraints. Drawing on more than a decade of close collaboration with Dinamo on typefaces such as Favorit, Whyte, Social, and Diatype—as well as his own release, Repro—he aimed to create something contemporary that felt renewed both emotionally and technically. This led him to Baumer’s concept of roundness and the ambition to design a grotesk that could stand out in the highly saturated genre.
This project also marked Erkin’s first collaboration with external designer Gregor Maria Sahl. The chemistry of the duo greatly supported the development and production process, with Gregor assisting in the expansion of the weights and now contributing to the upcoming monospaced extension of the Baumer Grotesk family.
Print and digital proofing from Baumer’s early development phases, part of the collaborative process between Erkin Karamemet and Gregor Maria Sahl.
At first glance, Baumer may appear standardized in its typical grotesk sensibilities. Upon closer inspection, the distinct treatment of curvature in its letterforms becomes clear. A great deal of precision was required to create curves that enhance the feeling of roundness. Many grotesks possess rounded corners, but are they as a whole round? This, of course, is an obtuse question, but when contemplating roundness, there are two ways to comprehend the concept: Does something genuinely feel round, or is it simply rounded; a corner hiding in disguise.
Neue Haas Grotesk
EK Baumer Grotesk
ABC Favorit
From left to right: Neue Haas Grotesk Text - 55 Roman, San Francisco Compact - Regular, EK Baumer Grotesk - Regular (circled, with alternate letter t), ABC Repro - Screen, ABC Whyte - Book, and ABC Favorit - inter
When talking about roundness, we do not mean geometrical circularity. We are specifically talking about how the curves and strokes are handled, as opposed to proportions. Longer and smoother curves are woven into the DNA of Baumer, not to hide the corners but to relegate the corners so much so that they become curves. They exist in the tension between humanistic flow and technical uniformity. In most cases, there are usually two approaches to the curves of grotesks: some are handled with letter-specific radii, while others are handled with a strict uniformity of rounded edges, applied across letterforms. Baumer exists perfectly central on this spectrum, combining the consistency of the mechanical while simultaneously embracing more humanistic curves. Roundness was considered holistically: how can it permeate through the entire alphabet, enabling a rounded feeling?
Apple’s rounded approach permeates both their products and their user interfaces.
Marcel Breuer’s continuous tubular desk and chair makes a point of having no sharp edges.
The investigation into roundness is born out of a response to an aesthetic standardization seen in the visual climate of today. All around, we are surrounded by roundness; whether it’s corporate identities, products themselves, or digital user interfaces, roundness and rounded edges are the dominant visual language. It doesn’t take a genius to understand why that may be: friendliness and kindness, often associated with roundness are the virtues that our profit-driven society holds high. This, of course, is because roundness humanizes things. Apple has made a strong point to prioritize the corners of its products.
Powell Jobs, she cried out, “Yes! That is such a breakthrough, I forgot about that.”
For each product, Jobs and Ive would discuss corners “for hours and hours.” 1
To further investigate the culture of roundness, other eras and other realms beyond the current visual climate were studied. For instance, the architect, Antoni Gaudí’s guiding philosophy, or at least the one popularly associated with him*, states that
“The straight line belongs to Man, the curved one to God.” 2
What does this mean in the context of typography? Typefaces usually possess both straight lines and curves. This places typography between the two poles, balancing mechanical straightness with a more humanistic sense of roundness. In simple terms, typefaces can occupy different locations on this spectrum. In the case of Baumer, we will restrict this spectrum to the grotesk genre, as to include all typographic possibilities would be futile. If straight lines are of Man, then we could argue that rounded corners are also of Man, as they are mechanical by nature, while the roundness of Baumer shifts in a different direction, offering something more than a soft corner. But let us not forget that by nature of being a legible typeface there are many straight lines in Baumer, but it is balanced by its roundness, perfectly occupying the space between mechanical, and humanistic, or in Gaudí’s language, Man and God.
While the form and design of Baumer may induce the first aesthetic impressions, under the hood exists a wide variety of features and functionalities, all built upon the same care and desire to propose improvements to often forgotten realms.
The weights of EK Baumer Grotesk are built according to a logic that can be represented in a 7×7 matrix. From left to right: Regular, Medium, Bold, and Black.
Historically ligatures offered typesetters the possibility to remedy moments of excess space by combining two letterforms into a single piece of metal. This approach to ligatures still thrives today, unchanged, even though the context in which they are implemented has dramatically evolved. No longer is spacing fixed, bound by the strict physical pieces, but is handled dynamically with the click of a button. When text is spaced tightly ligatures are often disabled as the spacing between the two conjoined letters is predetermined and does not match the designer’s choice of spacing. This feels increasingly outdated in today’s digital context; why maintain a standard that cannot accommodate changes in spacing?
The ligature has been reimagined in Baumer, evolving the concept to match the technological possibilities of contemporary typesetting. Rather than following the tradition of conjoining forms, letters maintain their own space and independence. Letterforms that appear unharmonious in tight spacing are replaced with an altered version to allow for more pleasant spacing.
Baumer’s space-harmonizing ligature function in action, shown in both states: before and after.
In today’s world, typography’s potential is almost unlimited. No longer are the restrictions of file size so severe, nor the limits of spacing metal type so confining. In the digital world there are seemingly endless streets to go down, in every direction. One direction where there has been no real standardization is the avenue of alternate characters. Although marked efforts such as DIN alternatives offer a starting point, which Baumer adheres to, they do not explore the full potential that OpenType alternatives have to offer. Utilitarian alternatives like DIN , and schoolbook offer a solution to the legibility problem that plagues grotesk letterforms, specifically in the uppercase “I” vs. lowercase “l” but these alternatives are drawn from a problem/solution origin. This raises a broader question: if legibility-driven alternates have long been the norm, what other typographic possibilities remain unexplored? Baumer pushes itself within this regard, and offers aesthetic alternatives, providing designers with more options regarding branding and identity curation.
Throughout the drawing of Baumer, there were many different sources of inspiration, certain traits were added while some were disregarded over time. One aspect that has endured throughout its production is the inclusion of bi-form characters, a feature with origins in the 1960s, most notably in Folio Extended [3]. These alternates expand the designer’s toolkit, allowing headlines or logos to be set in all caps while retaining the liveliness usually associated with lowercase forms.
A showcase of the many stylistic alternatives offered in Baumer’s utilitarian yet aesthetic character set.
Beyond the black of the letters, Erkin has ventured into the white space between them to propose further innovations. Typically, typefaces are designed with a strong emphasis on neutrality in spacing, allowing them to accommodate a wide range of uses. When designers need tighter or looser spacing, they must manually adjust tracking in their software, essentially stepping into the role of a typographer. But if typographic expertise is embedded in the typeface itself, why should designers repeatedly compensate for predictable spacing shifts? Baumer offers a solution. Its headline function automatically tightens spacing as type size increases, enhancing impact and visual effect. No longer is the designer responsible for point size dependent spacing; in Baumer, it’s all taken care of.
Another issue that arises for designers, when dealing with a multi-weight family is the difference in spacing between the cuts, when changing from Regular to Bold or Medium to Black, the spacing changes and so does the width that the text occupies, often prompting a rethinking of space on the designers’ part. Baumer remedies this with a uniwidth system, where all weights possess identical spacing, allowing for the typesetting of text to remain unchanged when switching between weights.
Baumer’s biform characters alongside their uppercase companions.
Carefully adjusted sizes, each individually designed for fractions, superscript numbers, and circled numbers.
Rounded punctuation offers an even softer, more rounded feel.
Baumer, resulting from years of meticulous craft and research, manages to demonstrate that even within a web of cemented standards, and a sea of similarity, uniqueness, innovation, and new ideas are still possible. In its reinterpretation of standards, we are reminded that standards are meant to be rethought and repurposed, as opposed to thrown out or blindly accepted as is. Baumer also reminds us that our relationship to contrast can be a source of insight, the contrast between humanistic warmth and geometric precision, between the constraints of the past and the possibilities of the future. By rejecting neither pole, it embraces both and shows that innovation often emerges from the space between them.
—
Text by Ishar Singh Hawkins
Notes & references
1. IAN PARKER , “The Shape of Things to Come,” The New Yorker, February 23, 2015, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come.
2. GIJS VAN HENSBERGEN, Gaudí (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 88. Although commonly attributed to Gaudí, the phrase is originally found in Pierre Albert-Birot’s writings.
3. BAUER TYPE FOUNDRY, Folio Extended specimen, ca. 1960.
Standard Deviations:
On Rethinking Functionality
Historically, type design and technology have always been intertwined, with each technological advancement bringing with it a whole new generation of typographic standards. The story of typography is often traced back to Gutenberg and his printing press. But rather than revisiting these well-worn narratives, we want to set the stage and discuss how Baumer handles the relationship between typography and the standardizations of both the past and today. Standards in typography permeate a wide variety of avenues, whether it's the type of material the physical letters are made out of, or which characters are included in the character set, or what the design of the letters themselves should look like. In today’s world, the limitations that have historically accompanied technology are much less restrictive, leaving designers a pool of possibility to deal with. Erkin Karamemet has navigated this pool, drawing on forgotten standards of the past and proposing some new of his own.
With many years of exploring the possibilities of the grotesk genre under his belt, Erkin set himself the challenge of working within new parameters and constraints. Drawing on more than a decade of close collaboration with Dinamo on typefaces such as Favorit, Whyte, Social, and Diatype—as well as his own release, Repro—he aimed to create something contemporary that felt renewed both emotionally and technically. This led him to Baumer’s concept of roundness and the ambition to design a grotesk that could stand out in the highly saturated genre.
This project also marked Erkin’s first collaboration with external designer Gregor Maria Sahl. The chemistry of the duo greatly supported the development and production process, with Gregor assisting in the expansion of the weights and now contributing to the upcoming monospaced extension of the Baumer Grotesk family.
Print and digital proofing from Baumer’s early development phases, part of the collaborative process between Erkin Karamemet and Gregor Maria Sahl.
At first glance, Baumer may appear standardized in its typical grotesk sensibilities. Upon closer inspection, the distinct treatment of curvature in its letterforms becomes clear. A great deal of precision was required to create curves that enhance the feeling of roundness. Many grotesks possess rounded corners, but are they as a whole round? This, of course, is an obtuse question, but when contemplating roundness, there are two ways to comprehend the concept: Does something genuinely feel round, or is it simply rounded; a corner hiding in disguise.
Neue Haas Grotesk
EK Baumer Grotesk
ABC Favorit
From left to right: Neue Haas Grotesk Text - 55 Roman, San Francisco Compact - Regular, EK Baumer Grotesk - Regular (circled, with alternate letter t), ABC Repro - Screen, ABC Whyte - Book, and ABC Favorit - inter
When talking about roundness, we do not mean geometrical circularity. We are specifically talking about how the curves and strokes are handled, as opposed to proportions. Longer and smoother curves are woven into the DNA of Baumer, not to hide the corners but to relegate the corners so much so that they become curves. They exist in the tension between humanistic flow and technical uniformity. In most cases, there are usually two approaches to the curves of grotesks: some are handled with letter-specific radii, while others are handled with a strict uniformity of rounded edges, applied across letterforms. Baumer exists perfectly central on this spectrum, combining the consistency of the mechanical while simultaneously embracing more humanistic curves. Roundness was considered holistically: how can it permeate through the entire alphabet, enabling a rounded feeling?
Apple’s rounded approach permeates both their products and their user interfaces.
Marcel Breuer’s continuous tubular desk and chair makes a point of having no sharp edges.
The investigation into roundness is born out of a response to an aesthetic standardization seen in the visual climate of today. All around, we are surrounded by roundness; whether it’s corporate identities, products themselves, or digital user interfaces, roundness and rounded edges are the dominant visual language. It doesn’t take a genius to understand why that may be: friendliness and kindness, often associated with roundness are the virtues that our profit-driven society holds high. This, of course, is because roundness humanizes things. Apple has made a strong point to prioritize the corners of its products.
Powell Jobs, she cried out, “Yes! That is such a breakthrough, I forgot about that.” For each product, Jobs and Ive would discuss corners “for hours and hours.” 1
To further investigate the culture of roundness, other eras and other realms beyond the current visual climate were studied. For instance, the architect, Antoni Gaudí’s guiding philosophy, or at least the one popularly associated with him*, states that
“The straight line belongs to Man, the curved one to God.” 2
What does this mean in the context of typography? Typefaces usually possess both straight lines and curves. This places typography between the two poles, balancing mechanical straightness with a more humanistic sense of roundness. In simple terms, typefaces can occupy different locations on this spectrum. In the case of Baumer, we will restrict this spectrum to the grotesk genre, as to include all typographic possibilities would be futile. If straight lines are of Man, then we could argue that rounded corners are also of Man, as they are mechanical by nature, while the roundness of Baumer shifts in a different direction, offering something more than a soft corner. But let us not forget that by nature of being a legible typeface there are many straight lines in Baumer, but it is balanced by its roundness, perfectly occupying the space between mechanical, and humanistic, or in Gaudí’s language, Man and God.
While the form and design of Baumer may induce the first aesthetic impressions, under the hood exists a wide variety of features and functionalities, all built upon the same care and desire to propose improvements to often forgotten realms.
The weights of EK Baumer Grotesk are built according to a logic that can be represented in a 7×7 matrix. From left to right: Regular, Medium, Bold, and Black.
Historically ligatures offered typesetters the possibility to remedy moments of excess space by combining two letterforms into a single piece of metal. This approach to ligatures still thrives today, unchanged, even though the context in which they are implemented has dramatically evolved. No longer is spacing fixed, bound by the strict physical pieces, but is handled dynamically with the click of a button. When text is spaced tightly ligatures are often disabled as the spacing between the two conjoined letters is predetermined and does not match the designer’s choice of spacing. This feels increasingly outdated in today’s digital context; why maintain a standard that cannot accommodate changes in spacing?
The ligature has been reimagined in Baumer, evolving the concept to match the technological possibilities of contemporary typesetting. Rather than following the tradition of conjoining forms, letters maintain their own space and independence. Letterforms that appear unharmonious in tight spacing are replaced with an altered version to allow for more pleasant spacing.
Baumer’s space-harmonizing ligature function in action, shown in both states: before and after.
In today’s world, typography’s potential is almost unlimited. No longer are the restrictions of file size so severe, nor the limits of spacing metal type so confining. In the digital world there are seemingly endless streets to go down, in every direction. One direction where there has been no real standardization is the avenue of alternate characters. Although marked efforts such as DIN alternatives offer a starting point, which Baumer adheres to, they do not explore the full potential that OpenType alternatives have to offer. Utilitarian alternatives like DIN , and schoolbook offer a solution to the legibility problem that plagues grotesk letterforms, specifically in the uppercase “I” vs. lowercase “l” but these alternatives are drawn from a problem/solution origin. This raises a broader question: if legibility-driven alternates have long been the norm, what other typographic possibilities remain unexplored? Baumer pushes itself within this regard, and offers aesthetic alternatives, providing designers with more options regarding branding and identity curation.
Throughout the drawing of Baumer, there were many different sources of inspiration, certain traits were added while some were disregarded over time. One aspect that has endured throughout its production is the inclusion of bi-form characters, a feature with origins in the 1960s, most notably in Folio Extended [3]. These alternates expand the designer’s toolkit, allowing headlines or logos to be set in all caps while retaining the liveliness usually associated with lowercase forms.
A showcase of the many stylistic alternatives offered in Baumer’s utilitarian yet aesthetic character set.
Beyond the black of the letters, Erkin has ventured into the white space between them to propose further innovations. Typically, typefaces are designed with a strong emphasis on neutrality in spacing, allowing them to accommodate a wide range of uses. When designers need tighter or looser spacing, they must manually adjust tracking in their software, essentially stepping into the role of a typographer. But if typographic expertise is embedded in the typeface itself, why should designers repeatedly compensate for predictable spacing shifts? Baumer offers a solution. Its headline function automatically tightens spacing as type size increases, enhancing impact and visual effect. No longer is the designer responsible for point size dependent spacing; in Baumer, it’s all taken care of.
Another issue that arises for designers, when dealing with a multi-weight family is the difference in spacing between the cuts, when changing from Regular to Bold or Medium to Black, the spacing changes and so does the width that the text occupies, often prompting a rethinking of space on the designers’ part. Baumer remedies this with a uniwidth system, where all weights possess identical spacing, allowing for the typesetting of text to remain unchanged when switching between weights.
Baumer’s biform characters alongside their uppercase companions.
Carefully adjusted sizes, each individually designed for fractions, superscript numbers, and circled numbers.
Rounded punctuation offers an even softer, more rounded feel.
8 Caption here
Baumer, resulting from years of meticulous craft and research, manages to demonstrate that even within a web of cemented standards, and a sea of similarity, uniqueness, innovation, and new ideas are still possible. In its reinterpretation of standards, we are reminded that standards are meant to be rethought and repurposed, as opposed to thrown out or blindly accepted as is. Baumer also reminds us that our relationship to contrast can be a source of insight, the contrast between humanistic warmth and geometric precision, between the constraints of the past and the possibilities of the future. By rejecting neither pole, it embraces both and argues that innovation often emerges from the space between them.
—
Text by Ishar Singh Hawkins
Notes & references
1. IAN PARKER , “The Shape of Things to Come,” The New Yorker, February 23, 2015, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come.
2. GIJS VAN HENSBERGEN, Gaudí (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 88. Although commonly attributed to Gaudí, the phrase is originally found in Pierre Albert-Birot’s writings.
3. BAUER TYPE FOUNDRY, Folio Extended specimen, ca. 1960.
Baumer Grotesk Family
