Perhaps the most defining element of Dae Huen Lee (Quicknap.zzz)’s new display typeface, Gosna, is its rhythmic, poetic fluidity and the deliciously intwining ligatures which follow. A musician as well as a designer, Quicknap.zzz says, ‘The design of Gosna font came to me very intuitively. Sitting in front of my computer, I would describe the shapes of the letters in the air with my hand, then I would simply replicate them with vector drawings (that would explain the gestural characteristic of this font).’
‘The initial gestural approach I had for this font naturally led me to making ligatures. I felt that threading glyphs together added a sense of speed/liveliness and tension, in the same way a blower (brass instruments) plays multiple notes within a single breath,’ Gosna’s creator continues. Inspired by piano playing and the improvisation of Jazz music, Quicknap.zzz adds, ‘I believe my practice of piano improvisation helped me to approach this work with a sense rhythm; how the letters follow one another, how the curves bend (more or less), if they feel slowed down or rushed, how gravity pulls down the letters etc…’
With delicate, pointy finishes that highlight a focus on sharp movements, Gosna can bring an avant-garde flair to logos, word marks and a range of display settings. ‘There is a set of isolated brush-stroke-glyphs that are components of Gosna font,’ the designer adds. ‘I thought it was a cool feature that people could fool around with…I enjoy these glyphs as they involve a musical understanding rather than a linguistic one.’
Filled with tensions and releases, ups and downs, Gosna’s glyphs thread together to create a unique and powerful narrative quality, meaning the typeface will work beautifully to enhance the narrative quality of the typography in a wide range of projects. Coming with a total glyph set of 497, the typeface is equipped with uppercase and lowercase characters, numbers, fractions, old-style characters, punctuation, diacritics, symbols, kerning pairs, two stylistic sets and of course, those stunning ligatures.
Want to get your hands on Gosna? Visit Type Department now.
