Erkin Karamemet takes us on a typographic journey behind the scenes with his sans serif Repro

Many designers will at some point be grateful to German type designer Erkin Karamemet and the team at Swiss foundry Dinamo for designing and engineering a typeface with an embedded encircling effect. Whilst it looks seamless and endlessly exciting to use, as you can imagine, creating this was certainly no walk in the park. Having dedicated over six years to the development of Repro, it was only fair that Karamemet told us in his own words what this momentous task entailed. PT: What triggered you to look at signage and digital operating systems for inspiration? EK: I think the drive has been inside me for a long time. I grew up in a space filled with signs and different wayfinding systems, because my dad was a sign maker in the German town of Bielefeld. He’s also a Jujutsu black belt, but that’s a different story. And then operating systems are just a part of everyday life for most of us, right? So I wanted to develop a tool made for our everyday surroundings, one that performed beautifully within them.