For many the highlight of the night was the creative deployment of a Roland Pen plotter, a machine that was originally used for printing architectural plans back in the 80s. The FontFont tech team hacked it, retooling the plotter into a calligraphic robot by replacing the radiographs with ink pens. This allowed them to send any text set in monoline fonts to the device which then quickly printed gorgeous A3-size certificates with a handwritten look.
Those who preferred writing truly by hand, using pens or brushes, were given the choice between a calligraphy workshop with Andreas Frohloff (FontFont) or a lettering course with Ulrike Rausch (LiebeFonts).
For digital type designers, Georg Seifert (creator of the type design software Glyphs) presented his Mac application in two sessions. Amongst others Georg revealed time-saving short cuts, and wowed the Glyphs novices with his interpolation tricks, foreign language hacks, and a special filter for rounded typefaces.
There also was a 20-minute CreativeMornings Berlin talk about letters. Its topic was the letter Eszett, the unique consonant that is used in the German language only. Invited by CreativeMornings host Jürgen Siebert, Berlin-based designer Nadine Roßa revisited her talk The German B which she originally presented in April 2012, but this time in German. Her passion for this letter is still as strong and infectious as ever, and carried over to the audience whose questions during the Q&A at the end shed a new light on the Eszett.
Besides the workshops and presentations there was ample time for mingling over drinks and snacks. The successful nightly event attracted a total of 480 visitors.
All photographs by Norman Posselt except where noted.