Industry: Design

Schenk

Two mid-century Swiss designers, one year apart, feeding a single contemporary typeface

Designed by Hrvoje Živčić, Schenk draws on Walter F. Haettenschweiler's 1954 lettering for Swiss bookseller SBVV—itself based on a 1953 Pierre Gauchat poster for the same client—later developed for the sourcebook Lettera. The family explores how minimal, repeating shapes can build letterforms, deliberately embracing visual tensions conventional type design avoids.

Set in Schenk

Insights

The source material was a partial lowercase alphabet, not a complete typeface; Živčić extended it into a full family.
White-space anomalies produced by repeating strokes—typically corrected in type design—are retained here as a defining characteristic.