Industry: Design

Duplicate

A creative-rut experiment that became five families

Christian Schwartz began Duplicate in 2007 as an experiment to escape a creative rut, inspired by musicians who stumble upon their signature sound by playing music they love from memory and getting it wrong. Curious whether a similar process applied to Roger Excoffon's Antique Olive would yield something new, he pursued that idea and arrived at a distinct sans serif. In collaboration with Miguel Reyes, the project expanded into five related families: Sans, Slab, Ionic, Soft, and Round.

Set in Duplicate

Insights

Schwartz drew an explicit analogy between his process and musicians who internalize influences and find an original voice through imprecision — an unusual stated rationale for a typeface's origin.
What began as a solo experiment grew into a multi-family collaboration with Miguel Reyes, resulting in five subfamilies: Sans, Slab, Ionic, Soft, and Round.