Handmade letter press of distilled elements

Bastard

Bastard is a modular typeface that challenges the accepted conventions of the Roman alphabet. It’s conception, design and development were deliberately restricted to be built upon three basic elements (curve, straight and angle) that were distilled down from the Grotesque wood-type blocks housed in Caseroom at The Glasgow School of Art.

The first draft of characters were produced by combining these 3 elements using the letterpress process through an overprinting technique. The removal of the compositional control at this point in the process led to the development of abstract characters that helped define the non-traditional aesthetic that followed.

The Bastard typeface case therefore comprises of just 3 wood-type shapes, which could only be used once per letter, each of which are able to be combined to allow the user to be able create their own truly unique letter forms. 



Using the skeleton frame and rules of the three shapes (never used more than once a letter), the user can build up their own unique letterforms 

Different options of letterforms 

Using Format