THOUGHT TYPE
Type Design Journal
Published and Edited by Claudio Piccinini (Modena Italy)
due out 2003

ANTIONETTE
Designed by Lee Schulz 1997
Reviewed by Jon Sueda 2002

According to Lee Schulz, Antionette is a member of a type family based in historic metaphor, built to function as a system of ornamental libraries. As the project developed, the idea of a typeface in this context took on a dual role.

Antionette is a discussion and critique of the perennially open issue of ornamentation and decoration. We all know that when a type or lettering historian has to address a typeface he or she is unable to classify, it can often be dismissed as “decorative”. Thus any intelligent attempt to address this topic is almost always quite stimulating.
Antionette’s dual function as an excessively embellished typeface and an abstract pattern-generating system is what made it unique at the time it was created. Although marginally-legible, the formal expression and the immediate flavor of each single character are very readable as Victorian. Today in 2002, a period where the design of “revival” typefaces with a single idea seem to be a fashionable trend, Antionette’s ability to express both ideological and formal characteristics of its source period, while simultaneously addressing more contemporary ideas like form generating systems, is really interesting.

A curious parallel could be drawn between Schulz’s work and Cornel Windlin’s 1991 typeface Moonbase Alpha, published in an issue of FUSE Magazine. Moonbase Alpha shares similar conceptual attributes with Antionette, and Windlin openly expressed the idea of its usage as a pattern generator. However, its less dynamic soft modular construction doesn’t encourage the “decorative impulse” to the extent that Antionette does.

Schulz very skillfully demonstrated some of the possibilities of Antionette’s dual usage in his MFA Thesis completed at CalArts. I’m honestly curious to see what other imaginative designers with access to the typeface would do with it if Antionette was available to the public.

The face’s innate ability to harness the “victorian spirit” is Schulz’s greatest achievement. The endless possibilities for character combinations and pattern generation through repetition, rotation and overlapping gets exciting when considering other variables like color, dimensionality and overprinting. The instant you load Antionette you can’t help but push every button on the keyboard and just see what happens.