Industry: Design

Typeface Design for Extended Reading

Calligraphy, pencil, and pixels: a three-stage process behind one text serif

Pollen is a Latin serif typeface published by TypeTogether in 2011, conceived by Eduardo Berliner (concept lead) and designed by José Scaglione and Veronika Burian, earning an ISTD Premier Award that year. Development combined broad-nib calligraphy, brush work, pencil drawing, and digital reinterpretation to produce a face intended for extended reading across print and screen. The family comprises four styles—Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic—with an OpenType feature set including small caps, ligatures, stylistic alternates, fractions, and ornaments.

Set in Pollen

Insights

Broad-nib pen and brush work directly shaped Pollen's top serifs, curved bottom serifs, and fluid terminals on letters such as 'g' and 'r'.
Diagonal letterforms follow a less formal calligraphic model yet still reference the broad-nib pen, distinguishing them from the upright characters.
The lowercase 'e' and 'c' are derived from one continuous line; 'g' and 'y' introduce handwriting-like informality the foundry describes as atypical of text serifs.