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Choose Weights
- Regular
- Bold
- Italic
- Bold Italic
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Mevum belongs to an entire font family that corresponds to the ample Western-Latin letter set. Treating each letter as
a… read more
Mevum belongs to an entire font family that corresponds to the ample Western-Latin letter set. Treating each letter as an individual element of a corporate logotype, the font’s unique verve aims to create a simple, strongly grotesque but warm character. With the elegant combination of tough and minimalistic characteristics that are declined by its feminine undertone, Mevum makes a unique and fresh impression. The additional counterpart to the regular set consists of an extraordinary slanted italic. Both styles are available in bold weights and incorporate old style figures on its main glyph position, as well as lining figures, that are applicable to proportional and fixed widths. Mevum picks up characteristic traits e.g. from architecture, engineering, electronics, science or sports whose practicality and orientation resemble the human being and its lifestyle. Its aesthetic structure can be valuable for setting either text or tables. Furthermore, the letter set contains eligible details like different ligatures such as the ‘ß’ expedient for the German alphabet.
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About the Designer Angelo Stitz
Angelo Stitz is a highly ambitious and curious young graphic and type designer. His spectrum of interest embraces
corpor… read more
Angelo Stitz is a highly ambitious and curious young graphic and type designer. His spectrum of interest embraces corporate and editorial design, illustration, sculpture and of course typography. Alongside the designer’s wide-ranging personal projects, he works as a freelance designer and convincingly manages not to limit his creative dynamic to one single branch. His style can be described as intrinsically reduced and user-oriented. He continues to be inspired by his own experimentation with many different types of media and techniques—all featured on his creative platform ‘Metatype.’
www.metatype.de
www.metatype.de
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Interview with Angelo Stitz
What was the main idea behind designing the font?
Before I started to draw all letters by hand on pape… read more
Before I started to draw all letters by hand on pape… read more
What was the main idea behind designing the font?
Before I started to draw all letters by hand on paper I analysed the visual construction of the letter ‘o’. At this step I reset the shape of the curves and determined where the vertical and the horizontal stems should encounter and how white space would displace each letter. To endorse Mevum’s legibility I compared the white space around and inside of each single letter in order to foster harmony within their proportions. Despite the sophisticated construction of the font, the single letters shouldn’t evoke the impression to be too intellectual. In spite of the reduction, the letters may express a friendly and warm personality, and still remaining distinguishable of one another.
Especially letters like capital and lowercase ‘I’ are unequivocally unique. Moreover the lowercase ‘a’ has a midbar, lowercase ‘g’ is two storied. While editing text in smaller type sizes the combination ‘rn’ shouldn’t fade into the letter ‘m’. Due to its decender the letter ‘f’ represents an unusual letter for a common grotesque. Furthermore I focused on the interaction between the regular and the italic styles. The technical construction of both fonts enables to keep their own individual characteristic texture in any running text. Besides the distinctive diagonal bar on ‘m’, ‘n’, ‘p’, ‘d’ there are tiny details such as the truncated corners on the end of the letter stems or the form of the serifs on top left of letters like ‘B’, ‘D’, ‘P’and ‘R’ which especially become visible in large textsizes. I want to give the user the opportunity to discover Mevum!
Which creative transaction required the most amount of time to create Mevum?
The construction of all glyphs that entail a higher amount of horizontal and vertical stem ramifications certainly required a more intense elaboration than all other, rather simplistically constructed letters. Especially the minuscule ‘g’ was quite exceptional at the initial point of its creative development. Some glyphs in bold styles needed some additional adjustments, since the corners of the small ‘round’ shapes were still not distinctive enough. So I adapted the technical concept how the vertical and horizontal stems sought to encounter as visual figures.
Which impression should Mevum make with its the audience?
Mevum has a tough but friendly feminine character which results of the combination of minimalistic and geometric shapes. Sometimes the letters enjoy further adornments, like e.g. the horizontal light curved bar on the letter ‘T’. In my opinion Mevum is highly suitable for content that is related to fields such as architecture, engineering, electronics, science and sports. However each user may feel free to enjoy and experience Mevum the way he or she wants to!
Which intention did you follow when deciding that Mevum Italics will bare a strong declination?
I wanted to use the full potential of an italic. This very day I saw grotesque fonts with artificial slanted letters which represent a relict of photosetters machines from the 70s. My ambition was to give the italic its own strongly decisive personality and its own flow, aiming to get a different texture and rhythm to what the regular weight proposes. Most postmodern fonts aren’t extraordinary slanted such as Adobe Garamond-Italic. I tried to make it different.
How did you come up with the name ‘Mevum’? Is there any specific story behind the definition?
Unfortunately, I can’t offer you a deep emotional story why we decided on the word ‘Mevum’. The reason why we came up with this specific denomination was a rather pragmatic one. Including the last two letters ‘um’ should underline the importance of how two single letters exemplary connecting with one another. Everybody should be able to pronounce the name easily in any language. We wanted the entitling definition to sound smooth, to be well recognizable and to strike with a positive denotation—of course the name should be unique and not still not used by someone else. Personally I like the sound and denotation of the word novum, describing something entirely new. Since novum is already a commonly known word, I decided to substitute ‘M’ with ‘N’, and the ‘o’ with an ‘e’. ‘Movum’ just doesn’t sound good to me. Believe me that’s the whole story! Suddenly I realized that I could start winding up the editing process since I realized that my cute child was born: an original ‘Mevum’.
Do you have a certain philosophy how to bring something in shape?
There are endless approaches to create the form of one very object. To me, the creative process usually starts while composing a form or a concept in my head. Sometimes I already have an idea or an impression at the very beginning how the object could turn out, but nevertheless I generally don’t start a project for a client or another person before understanding the intention behind the project. Not every intuitive thought automatically helps to push the project. So it’s very helpful to change your point of view and reflect your thoughts frequently. The Mevum went through a lot of changes and improvements. At the beginning of the process creating Mevum I wanted to give the ends of horizontal stems a convex form, but at the end I removed this tiny detail to avoid a formal overload.
Do you depend on certain specific tools to create a new font?
At the very beginning of the creative work process I like to include any kind of materials or tools to start creating the draft for a new design. At the beginning I try not to stick too much to the computer since I tend to loose myself into details and technical stuff. But then again, sometimes those tools exactly provide the hints I was looking for. Usually I start with some basic mind maps, and then start thinking about key words which describe my aims more precisely. I collect everything—any sort of material which I like—and which attracts my full attention. At the next step I gather all elaborated information on a white empty wall, which is the equivalent to a physical mood board. At this stage I get into drawing some scribbles. Maybe one of the handmade drafts will then already be the final concept. In my opinion people, cultures, museums, architecture, a food sales assistant or even your own mother can be inspiring to evoke new unexpected approaches in terms of creative working.
Which creative field attracts your main attention? Do you prefer working in the digital or analogue branch?
I would say it depends on the purpose and the process of each project, which make up the existential initial point to foster new ideas. At the moment I believe to prefer working in the analogue field over the digital branch, just because I consider myself a fetishist for surfaces. I am somebody who likes to touch and smell products. More than usual I have a glimpse inside a new book, then close my eyes and smell the paper, the offset paint! I like to conceive the haptic structure of its texture. I like to draw, to paint, to cut, to fold, to cook, to carve, to braze, to light or to destroy any material to see what happens with the actual object. But I’m also interested in motion pictures and programming languages in order to regulate a micro controller, like an arduino-board through processing. I’m especially excited about the crossover of analogue and digital media. Unfortunately time is always limited.
Are you planning to evolve Mevum furthermore or are you done working on its stylistic appearance?
According to the requirements I would like to expand the Mevum-family to a total of eight styles. I believe that thin and heavy weights, beside regular and italic styles, would work very well. I’m curious about a Cyrillic or Greek influence, because I would like to know, how I can adapt those style elements to the character of an other language.
What makes you excited about designing fonts?
Interesting question! First of all: It’s an incredible feeling to edit a text file using your own font and be the creator of your own set of forms. Second: To create a large set of glyphs ‘infects’ me like a virus. Every sign expands the possibilities to set a written document. It feels like a child learning a language. A higher variety of glyphs can compose more words, more sentences, more content and also delivers more opportunities to express yourself. Third: It takes time to actually create a font, it’s a long process to get there. I miss the sincere sensibility for time in our world that is moving faster every time, especially in the field of design. Life and process influence one another, like a goldsmith who needs time to forge his metal slowly to accomplish the best result. I always aspire a relationship between what I’m doing and all the other small things which surround us in our daily life. Fourth: In my opinion, typography represents the root of graphic design. As a child I already disassembled everything around me, in order to see and to understand how things work entirely. My aspiration is to understand graphic design by approaching it in a holistic manner.
What is your personal attitude towards the idea to possibly specializing on fonts?
On the one hand it is beneficial to concentrate all your attention and energy in the area you specialized in. If so, you can work highly specific and efficiently, having a higher outcome in less time. Until this point I worked in quite a wide variety of fields related to design, but in the future my focus will be tied stronger to type design. On the other hand it is convincing not to loose reference to your proper environment and to remain being attentive to fields that absolutely don’t focus on graphic design or furthermore to aspirations that are beyond typography. That is one of the reasons why I always enjoy having discussions with people who don’t work in the field of graphic design and therefore help pushing forward new ideas.
Isn’t it unfortunate not to be able to invent a style which hasn’t been there yet?
What does ‘really new’ mean actually? In my opinion in our area something is new, when it corresponds to a previous development and contains an own new interpretation or way to see something different. I don’t agree with the idea, that in past times the creation of something new sought to be necessarily easier than today. I agree on the opposite. Related to type design, we have endless opportunities to strike new paths today, compared to people who lived 700 years ago. That’s why I’m so excited about the world in which we live in these days, especially in terms of type design. Of course one single type designer can’t invent brand new letters, but a type designer—or a group of type designers—can invent new forms to express the spirit of their age. And that’s how we will keep on approaching ‘new’ forms throughout the process.
Before I started to draw all letters by hand on paper I analysed the visual construction of the letter ‘o’. At this step I reset the shape of the curves and determined where the vertical and the horizontal stems should encounter and how white space would displace each letter. To endorse Mevum’s legibility I compared the white space around and inside of each single letter in order to foster harmony within their proportions. Despite the sophisticated construction of the font, the single letters shouldn’t evoke the impression to be too intellectual. In spite of the reduction, the letters may express a friendly and warm personality, and still remaining distinguishable of one another.
Especially letters like capital and lowercase ‘I’ are unequivocally unique. Moreover the lowercase ‘a’ has a midbar, lowercase ‘g’ is two storied. While editing text in smaller type sizes the combination ‘rn’ shouldn’t fade into the letter ‘m’. Due to its decender the letter ‘f’ represents an unusual letter for a common grotesque. Furthermore I focused on the interaction between the regular and the italic styles. The technical construction of both fonts enables to keep their own individual characteristic texture in any running text. Besides the distinctive diagonal bar on ‘m’, ‘n’, ‘p’, ‘d’ there are tiny details such as the truncated corners on the end of the letter stems or the form of the serifs on top left of letters like ‘B’, ‘D’, ‘P’and ‘R’ which especially become visible in large textsizes. I want to give the user the opportunity to discover Mevum!
Which creative transaction required the most amount of time to create Mevum?
The construction of all glyphs that entail a higher amount of horizontal and vertical stem ramifications certainly required a more intense elaboration than all other, rather simplistically constructed letters. Especially the minuscule ‘g’ was quite exceptional at the initial point of its creative development. Some glyphs in bold styles needed some additional adjustments, since the corners of the small ‘round’ shapes were still not distinctive enough. So I adapted the technical concept how the vertical and horizontal stems sought to encounter as visual figures.
Which impression should Mevum make with its the audience?
Mevum has a tough but friendly feminine character which results of the combination of minimalistic and geometric shapes. Sometimes the letters enjoy further adornments, like e.g. the horizontal light curved bar on the letter ‘T’. In my opinion Mevum is highly suitable for content that is related to fields such as architecture, engineering, electronics, science and sports. However each user may feel free to enjoy and experience Mevum the way he or she wants to!
Which intention did you follow when deciding that Mevum Italics will bare a strong declination?
I wanted to use the full potential of an italic. This very day I saw grotesque fonts with artificial slanted letters which represent a relict of photosetters machines from the 70s. My ambition was to give the italic its own strongly decisive personality and its own flow, aiming to get a different texture and rhythm to what the regular weight proposes. Most postmodern fonts aren’t extraordinary slanted such as Adobe Garamond-Italic. I tried to make it different.
How did you come up with the name ‘Mevum’? Is there any specific story behind the definition?
Unfortunately, I can’t offer you a deep emotional story why we decided on the word ‘Mevum’. The reason why we came up with this specific denomination was a rather pragmatic one. Including the last two letters ‘um’ should underline the importance of how two single letters exemplary connecting with one another. Everybody should be able to pronounce the name easily in any language. We wanted the entitling definition to sound smooth, to be well recognizable and to strike with a positive denotation—of course the name should be unique and not still not used by someone else. Personally I like the sound and denotation of the word novum, describing something entirely new. Since novum is already a commonly known word, I decided to substitute ‘M’ with ‘N’, and the ‘o’ with an ‘e’. ‘Movum’ just doesn’t sound good to me. Believe me that’s the whole story! Suddenly I realized that I could start winding up the editing process since I realized that my cute child was born: an original ‘Mevum’.
Do you have a certain philosophy how to bring something in shape?
There are endless approaches to create the form of one very object. To me, the creative process usually starts while composing a form or a concept in my head. Sometimes I already have an idea or an impression at the very beginning how the object could turn out, but nevertheless I generally don’t start a project for a client or another person before understanding the intention behind the project. Not every intuitive thought automatically helps to push the project. So it’s very helpful to change your point of view and reflect your thoughts frequently. The Mevum went through a lot of changes and improvements. At the beginning of the process creating Mevum I wanted to give the ends of horizontal stems a convex form, but at the end I removed this tiny detail to avoid a formal overload.
Do you depend on certain specific tools to create a new font?
At the very beginning of the creative work process I like to include any kind of materials or tools to start creating the draft for a new design. At the beginning I try not to stick too much to the computer since I tend to loose myself into details and technical stuff. But then again, sometimes those tools exactly provide the hints I was looking for. Usually I start with some basic mind maps, and then start thinking about key words which describe my aims more precisely. I collect everything—any sort of material which I like—and which attracts my full attention. At the next step I gather all elaborated information on a white empty wall, which is the equivalent to a physical mood board. At this stage I get into drawing some scribbles. Maybe one of the handmade drafts will then already be the final concept. In my opinion people, cultures, museums, architecture, a food sales assistant or even your own mother can be inspiring to evoke new unexpected approaches in terms of creative working.
Which creative field attracts your main attention? Do you prefer working in the digital or analogue branch?
I would say it depends on the purpose and the process of each project, which make up the existential initial point to foster new ideas. At the moment I believe to prefer working in the analogue field over the digital branch, just because I consider myself a fetishist for surfaces. I am somebody who likes to touch and smell products. More than usual I have a glimpse inside a new book, then close my eyes and smell the paper, the offset paint! I like to conceive the haptic structure of its texture. I like to draw, to paint, to cut, to fold, to cook, to carve, to braze, to light or to destroy any material to see what happens with the actual object. But I’m also interested in motion pictures and programming languages in order to regulate a micro controller, like an arduino-board through processing. I’m especially excited about the crossover of analogue and digital media. Unfortunately time is always limited.
Are you planning to evolve Mevum furthermore or are you done working on its stylistic appearance?
According to the requirements I would like to expand the Mevum-family to a total of eight styles. I believe that thin and heavy weights, beside regular and italic styles, would work very well. I’m curious about a Cyrillic or Greek influence, because I would like to know, how I can adapt those style elements to the character of an other language.
What makes you excited about designing fonts?
Interesting question! First of all: It’s an incredible feeling to edit a text file using your own font and be the creator of your own set of forms. Second: To create a large set of glyphs ‘infects’ me like a virus. Every sign expands the possibilities to set a written document. It feels like a child learning a language. A higher variety of glyphs can compose more words, more sentences, more content and also delivers more opportunities to express yourself. Third: It takes time to actually create a font, it’s a long process to get there. I miss the sincere sensibility for time in our world that is moving faster every time, especially in the field of design. Life and process influence one another, like a goldsmith who needs time to forge his metal slowly to accomplish the best result. I always aspire a relationship between what I’m doing and all the other small things which surround us in our daily life. Fourth: In my opinion, typography represents the root of graphic design. As a child I already disassembled everything around me, in order to see and to understand how things work entirely. My aspiration is to understand graphic design by approaching it in a holistic manner.
What is your personal attitude towards the idea to possibly specializing on fonts?
On the one hand it is beneficial to concentrate all your attention and energy in the area you specialized in. If so, you can work highly specific and efficiently, having a higher outcome in less time. Until this point I worked in quite a wide variety of fields related to design, but in the future my focus will be tied stronger to type design. On the other hand it is convincing not to loose reference to your proper environment and to remain being attentive to fields that absolutely don’t focus on graphic design or furthermore to aspirations that are beyond typography. That is one of the reasons why I always enjoy having discussions with people who don’t work in the field of graphic design and therefore help pushing forward new ideas.
Isn’t it unfortunate not to be able to invent a style which hasn’t been there yet?
What does ‘really new’ mean actually? In my opinion in our area something is new, when it corresponds to a previous development and contains an own new interpretation or way to see something different. I don’t agree with the idea, that in past times the creation of something new sought to be necessarily easier than today. I agree on the opposite. Related to type design, we have endless opportunities to strike new paths today, compared to people who lived 700 years ago. That’s why I’m so excited about the world in which we live in these days, especially in terms of type design. Of course one single type designer can’t invent brand new letters, but a type designer—or a group of type designers—can invent new forms to express the spirit of their age. And that’s how we will keep on approaching ‘new’ forms throughout the process.