Developing Canela: An Interview with Miguel Reyes of Commercial Type
Designing a typeface always has a story behind it. Typethursday sat down with Miguel of Commercial Type to discuss the backstory of his typeface, Canela.
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TypeThursday: Miguel, thanks for being here for TypeThursday!
Miguel Reyes: Hey Thomas, thanks for the invitation. I’m flattered for being here.
TT: Absolutely, Miguel. I’ve always loved having you attend the TypeThursday meetups. I’m really happy to speak with you about your first solo typeface release, Canela, with Commercial Type. Let me start by congratulating you on the release.
Christian and Paul invited me to think about how can I get some thing new from Caslon instead of being too historical or too much of a direct reinterpretation of the model.
Canela’s Origin
MR: Thanks Tomas, I was always interested to see what was going on at Typethursday meet ups and it’s been an interesting experience every time.
Canela is my first solo release and I’m really happy with the results. Commercial Type has helped get the best out of me. Canela would had never happen without the support of Paul and Christian.
TT: From what you just shared, the co-founders of Commercial Type, Christian Schwartz and Paul Barnes, help you develop Canela by pushing you. In what ways did they help push you?
MR: Yes, that’s right. In Commercial we have 1 day per week to work in personal ideas and Canela started in this way. I’ve been always fascinated with Caslon Old Style and we talked about designing a Caslon version for newspapers. I spent sometime trying to make it work but the idea wasn’t clear to myself.
Christian and Paul invited me to think about how can I get some thing new from Caslon instead of being too historical or too much of a direct reinterpretation of the model.
TT: After Christian and Paul’s push, what about Caslon did you find interesting?
What makes Caslon great is the awkwardness of its texture as text.
What in Caslon Inspired Miguel
MR: What makes Caslon great is the awkwardness of its texture as text. Caslon, in comparison other typefaces, does not follow the same principals as a system. You’ll see the weight in unexpected places. It’s all over the place. Yet it works. Same goes for Caslon’s proportions. They stand out compared to other typefaces.
Related to Caslon’s texture is its crispiness. I’ve only seen in Matthew Carter’s interpretation in Big Caslon based on the largest sizes presumably cut by Williams Caslon I. But I haven’t seen many other typefaces capture Caslon’s crispiness.
TT: For those who may not know, in what ways is Caslon’s weight placement unexpected?
MR: The lowercase is where we can see this precisely in shapes like e, c, b, d, p, q where the weight distribution is asymmetrical is not really systematic as other typefaces. Also the contrast between thick and thin is really something special here and Canela plays with that too.
TT: Are the glyphic serifs in Canela related to the “crispness” you described earlier in Caslon?
MR: No, the crispness of Caslon is more related in the way that the curves of the shapes are drawn. Crispness is also expressed in how the entrance and exit terminals are defined.
I’ve seen some reinterpretation of Caslon where the serifs and terminals are rounded and I think the lost that characteristic from Caslon. The “serifs” in Canela are coming more from the monumentality of stone carving, in some way Canela is neither a serif nor sans serif.
TT: For you, Caslon’s crispness comes from interpretations that maintain sharp terminals and the nature of its curves. Can you help me to understand what you mean by crispness in Caslon’s curves?
MR: Sure, here’s an image example. I’ve been able to look at some punches from Caslon and the curves and terminals are almost straight not rounded but I think those interpretations are always coming from printed examples. To me Caslon is cleaner, sharper and crispier.
TT: Does that sharpness and crispness relate to the thick-thin contrast in Caslon you found special?
MR: It’s a quality that distinguish Caslon from some other typefaces and makes it interesting to me.
Canela is neither a serif nor sans serif. The “serifs” in Canela are coming more from the monumentality of stone carving.
The Monumentality of Stone Carving
TT: You shared before the “glyphic serifs” came from monumentality of stone carving. How did you come to that inspiration?
MR: Once talking with Paul about the project he suggested what will happen if Caslon was sans serif. I started playing around that idea but I could not find something interesting. I’ve practiced stone carving as part of my training in Type Media at KABK. During my exploration about terminals and serifs I came across the idea of trying something inspired from that stone carving experience and we thought we found something new combining Caslon with this.
Canela’s Italic
TT: Did this infusion of stone carving influence the direction for Canela’s italics?
MR: Canela Italics differed completely from Caslon. The goal for the italics were to find something more appropriate for the romans. The italic direction was to emphasize the monumental feeling from stone carved letters. This was never truly intended. It was something that just happened after trying to match them with the romans.
Miguel’s Lesson from Working on Canela
TT: What is the one lesson you learned from working on Canela?
MR: To push myself and explore different options, because sometimes we tend to go straight forward to an specific idea or solution.
TT: This has been a great conversation, Miguel. Thanks so much for being here.
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