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Martin Brendecke

@martinbrendecke

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Type Goblin
EsadType 2024
Teacher at @typecentral
Co not-a-founder @not_a_foundry

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But what do its feet look like? While I keep working on the Psalicorne lowercase, you can enjoy this cryptic snippet of Marco Polo trying to describe a rhinoceros to folks back home.

#type #typedesign #wip #unicorn #gothic by @martinbrendecke

🏆 Zetafonts is proud to share that Tarisel, designed by Martin Brendecke @martinbrendecke , has been selected as a winner in the Communication Arts Typography Competition @communicationarts .

Founded in 1959, Communication Arts remains one of the most respected publications in the design industry, making this recognition a meaningful milestone for both the typeface and its designer.

After receiving a TDC Award, Tarisel adds another important achievement to its journey, confirming the strength of Martin’s distinctive typographic vision. We are very proud to have one of his designs in the Zetafonts catalogue.

Thank you to the Communication Arts jury for this honor!

#communicationarts #communicationartsawards by @martinbrendecke

Broken in Black
Fonts and Faces #13
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International Type Symposium
Organised by Simon Renaud
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wednesday 4 novembre 2026
at @fonderiedelimage
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Registration link:
https://urls.fr/YLaeaP

Speakers:
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@eugbidaut
@martinbrendecke
@lucasdescroix
@fritzgroegel
@jeromeknebusch
@queertype (Betsy Schuster)

Beyond their historical significance, the so-called Blackletter scripts provide a particularly fruitful subject for examining the very foundations of typeface design. The repetition of vertical strokes, the uniformity of rhythm, the continuity of the black masses and the regularity of spacing produce a distinctive gestalt resulting from a specific method of stroke production. These scripts reveal their own process of creation, in which the typographic form cannot be separated from the gesture that produces it. Representation is thus no longer limited to conveying content; it also reveals the conditions of its own emergence. These Gothic letters continually draw attention to their mode of presentation: they show as much as they signify.

Held at the Campus Fonderie de l’Image, this study day aims to explore the historical and contemporary ecology of blackletter typefaces. How have these forms been used throughout history? Why do type designers continue to adopt them? What becomes of them when they are re-appropriated in technical, cultural or media contexts that are radically different from those in which they originated? We will examine the tensions they reveal between invention and heritage, legibility and expressiveness, reading and image, but also between the search for new reading experiences and the persistence of forms whose power seems to lie precisely in their ability to make the very presence of writing tangible.

#fontsandfaces #blackletter #typeface #typedesign #typography #typographie #design #writing #elementarytypeface by @martinbrendecke

Martin Brendecke is a 2021 graduate of SCCA. His study of type lead him to France where he earned an MFA in type design at Ésad Amiens in 2025. Recently returned to Seattle, he is freelancing and building community in the type design realm. Read more about Martin in his alumni interview, link in bio. by @martinbrendecke

Put me in coach! One-on-one type design coaching sessions are open for booking. Experts are standing by to tell you how to make your typefaces rock. Link in bio!

#typedesign #typography #design #coaching #coachella by @martinbrendecke

Go-go-goblin font! I’ve been sitting on this concept for a few months and it felt great to draw something new again. No designspace, no massive glyphset, no deadlines, just me and some béziers. I know I’m on to something when even the most trivial shapes gain meaning. Now I just have to draw the uppercase…

#type #goblin #font #medieval #gothic by @martinbrendecke

There is a photocopy somewhere, creased, faded, of unknown provenance, that started all of this. Martin Brendecke @martinbrendecke was eight years old when his mother made it for him at the public library. It claimed to be “based on a 15th-century German style.” He couldn’t stop looking at it. The angular shoulders, the condensed rhythm, the flat baseline that seemed to defy the very logic of the broad-nib pen that had made it. He filed it away somewhere in the back of his mind, and promised himself that someday, he would pick up where he left off. Twenty-four years later, that promise became Tarisel.

What began as a graduation project at ÉsadType @esadtype_amiens @esad_amiens in Amiens slowly unfolded into something deeper. Driven by a childhood fascination, Martin immersed himself in medieval manuscripts and inscriptional forms, studying, sketching, and reworking their logic through his own practice. Along the way, unexpected directions emerged, and what was once a side exploration became one defining voice, slowly evolving the project far beyond its academic origins.

In our latest blog article, Martin retraces that journey, addressing also the role of instinct within a research-driven process and what it means to bring such a personal project into the world thanks to Zetafonts.

A story that, this year, was also recognized with a TDC award. @typedirectors

Read the full interview on our blog
→ www.zetafonts.com/blog by @martinbrendecke

I’m sorry you had to find out like this but there’s more to life than Lombardic capitals. Tarisel Text and Tarisel Hybrid are also part of the package…and they’re coming soon to Zetafonts!

@zetafonts @typedirectors #tdc #tdc72 #typedesign #typography #text @esadtype_amiens by @martinbrendecke

This mighty union shall be reforged. Award-winning Tarisel capitals available only at Zetafonts!

@zetafonts @typedirectors #tdc #tdc72 @esad_amiens #typedesign #goblincore #gothicfonts by @martinbrendecke

It’s a Tari-celebration! Tarisel now clutches a TDC award in its clawlike appendages. If this typeface could speak, it would surely say that it is honored and urge you to purchase a license from @zetafonts

@typedirectors #tdc72 @esadtype_amiens #typedesign #goblincore #lombardiccapitals by @martinbrendecke

The Middle Ages just got a new typeface! 🏰

Tarisel, designed by @martinbrendecke Martin Brendecke, is a set of Lombardic capitals with a modern edge, inspired by 13th-century inscriptions from the Cathedral of Amiens. Conceived for massive display applications, Tarisel gives the term “Gothic” new meaning with an innovative vocabulary of structural ornamentation, including elongated serifs and broken counterforms. Multiple sets of stylistic alternates can be used to highlight Tarisel’s Romanesque or its Gothic roots, or to create a cryptic mélange of the two.

Tarisel is now available as an Alpha preview on the Zetafonts Beats Section. Test it and tell us what you think. 👇🏻

Check it out → www.zetafonts.com/tarisel by @martinbrendecke

Tarisel Text: coming soon to Zetafonts! Behind the scenes, I have been hard at work brushing up my flagship text typeface. No glyph has undergone more radical change than the capital ‘A’, whose structure evolved from a manifestation of the lowercase construction to an echo of the companion Lombardic style—slated for release in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

#type #typedesign #graphicdesign #gothic #medieval by @martinbrendecke