What came of that interest was a very cool-looking thing. We wanted to make a typeface that looked very smooth and rounded off, but instead it became spiky, with little pointy bits sticking out from the edges of each character in a most unpredictable way. And what's the most fun about Beowulf is that every time you print it, those spiky bits take on a slightly different appearance. If we use Egyptian hieroglyphs or Chinese writing here in The Hague, we won't communicate anything. But at the same time, as graphic designers who are trying to innovate and establish creative new ways of communicating, we have to be surprising and invent new images.
Type is definitely here to stay.
Images simply aren't strong enough or powerful enough to express everything you want to say. You can't make pictures to replace this interview. Not long after that, we came up with JustLeftHand and ErikRightHand, which are simply scans of our respective handwriting. Trixie took a bit longer. But leaving all the dirt and all the irregularities in caused problems when we got to production.