Graphic Design: Sawdust create a paint typeface as studio experiment

We’ve long banged the drum for the importance of using personal work and experiments to help refine, develop and explore the creative process. Sawdust, aka Rob Gonzalez and Jonathan Quainton, have just released the fruits of one of their recent studio projects, making a typeface from acrylic paint that uses folds and shadows to examine “dimensionality.”

The results are interesting and exciting and may well feature in some of the studio’s future work, but as Rob explained that wasn’t why they did it. “The reason we created this project was simply to play and to have fun,” he told us. “Ideas can often be rejected by the commercial world so it’s a shame if they never see the light of day. We’re not against creating studio projects that are based on our own personal explorations, in fact we champion that philosophy.

“The result of this particular experiment is pleasing but it’s always an area of uncertainty. Sometimes what you see in your mind isn’t what comes out in reality but it doesn’t always matter, what’s important is that you try to make something. Where studio projects like this one will lead is out of our control, we just want to make interesting work.”