Emil Bertell is someone who has essentially been creative since birth, being drawn toward the visual arts before he could even read. By the time high school rolled around, Emil attended an arts-based high school with an emphasis on multimedia design, his first foray into the world of graphic design.
While there, he learned a great deal about the principles of good design and took note of the vital role that typography played in solid graphic design. Determined to learn more about type design, Emil took it upon himself to study the art on his own time. He went on to design and release his very first font at just 16 years old, with his work published in an anthology about free fonts.
While Emil worked as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer for a number of years after university, he eventually returned to type design, exploring his passion full time as of 2012. He established Fenotype as his own foundry label and has remained active in the industry ever since.
Hand-drawn fonts are a particular specialty of Emil’s, one largely influenced by his phenomenal work as an illustrator. Much of his focus has remained on script and display designs with an organic touch although he has also worked on more contemporary character sets, as well.
One of his most recent releases is Zeit, a timeless serif type design that carries itself with poise and grace. Zeit is a sophisticated and elegant family with a distinctive architecture that will never go out of style. Emil said that while fashions come and go, style is eternal and in that respect, Zeit will remain en vogue no matter how design trends ebb and flow over time.
One particularly unique characteristic of Zeit involves its serifs. In the family’s uppercase characters, the serifs are razor-sharp and pointed, adding an air of assurance and determination. The serifs in Zeit’s lowercase characters, however, feature soft ball terminals that become more pronounced through its lighter weights. The variance between the two creates a visually-striking juxtaposition that works beautifully.
Zeit speaks with confidence and its structure encourages a comfortable reading experience even in smaller point. It is especially well suited to designs related to the fashion industry, beauty, and fragrance, with swash alternates that lend a soft, feminine flair. It also serves beautifully in magazine spreads, editorials, and publishing applications.
Zeit is available in ExtraLight, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, ExtraBold, and Heavy, with corresponding italics for each weight. Zeit’s range of weights makes it perfect for everything from headlines to long-form text, displays, signage, logos, letterhead, website designs, product packaging, merchandise, apparel, labels, tags, promotional and marketing materials, and mobile applications. It’s a great choice for branding and identity projects that require flexibility and design cohesion across multiple media types and sizes.
Zeit offers a number of additional features through OpenType, including capitals to small caps, case-sensitive forms, fractions, standard and discretionary ligatures, small caps, oldstyle figures, contextual alternates, and stylistic alternates. Swash alternates are also included in the italics, along with variants of the g and y characters.
Zeit extends multilingual support to Basic Latin, Western European, Euro, Baltic, Turkish, Central European, Romanian, and Pan African Latin languages for global accessibility.
Emil Bertell currently offers 88 products through YouWorkForThem, a varied range of serifs, sans serifs, scripts, and display fonts to suit design projects of all kinds. Visit his portfolio to check out the rest of his work and bookmark it so you won’t miss out on his future releases!