Final tattoo artwork, top design for small sizes and bottom for larger applications.
Bouleversé typeface
by Olmo
In the summer of 2019, during a trip to Europe, one of my daughters shared with us that her favorite word was bouleversé. She explained it was when someone experienced a mix of many emotions, simultaneously. The word boulleversé sparked my curiosity.
A couple of years ago, and upon my return home from a work-related trip, where I was invited to participate in field research in Europe, I began to experience many conflicting emotions, all manifested at the same time creating an unexpected and uninvited mentally confusing sense of being. Then I came to realize that I was experiencing the same emotion described by my daughter years ago. This might be a response to being outside of my comfort zone (home and family, routine, environment...) for 4 weeks while immersing to learn about different cultures, history, and understanding human behavior. And within one week, I was at the San Francisco office working with the research team to analyze the information gathered. The experience was intense and rewarding, as I performed research during the day and office work during the evenings to make sure all the work was up to date, and all deadlines were met.
These are some of the photographs taken while visiting Lyon, Paris, Berlin and San Francisco.
Once settled back home, and as I entered the home office I came across three pieces of plastic debris that I had saved, thinking there was something there. These 3 pieces are what was left of my kids' baby door gate. It had crumbled into dust and pieces of plastic from the sun, time, and water exposure, years after and my kids had already grown up into young adults. Then I decided it was a great moment to start concentrating on a new personal project and explore the possibilities.
The conflicting emotion lasted more than 4 months, and in my search for clarity, this is how I proactively managed to deal with it.
Scraps of plastic collected and used, as starting point and inspiration
The original saved pieces resembled the lowercase letters ”r“, ”b“, and ”i“, and the experiment to find out if there was more to be found where that came from began.
The outcome of this project became an experimental typeface, later named Bouleversé. And the name fitted the project. It was hard to make sense of the shapes, adjustments, and liberties that were considered to achieve a satisfying resolution.
Pattern used as grid and structure model
The typeface is inspired and based on the design from the baby gate mesh pattern. I have so far completed all the lower case letters and some variants, some capital letters, and a few additional glyphs.
Patterns and behavior
The mental concepts in mind for this project development are:
The gate as liberties and limits
Following, adjusting, or rethinking pre-established patterns
Time: longevity, resilience, and decay
Offspring and their protagonism in our lives
Family as a community of collective thoughts, and idea-sharing
The power of collaboration, unity, and respect
Rebirth: Children as eternal life
Making decisions and defining your own rules
Finding ways to interconnections
Racial judgment as we are all part of the human race
Purpose or repurpose, reinvent, document
Understanding cultural perceptions, motivational differences, and similarities
Listening and researching to understand
Generating objectivity and empathy
Personal growth, emotional intelligence, and resilience
Tattoos as a memorable scar
And making sense of “bouleversé”
Bouleversé typeface, Black (for smaller sizes) and Regular
Time and resilience
The time spent dedicated to this personal project, where I set my own rules and goals, allowed for personal analysis to understand what was happening, why it was so mentally intense, and how to move forward by learning from the whole experience.
Hope you enjoy the project!
Culture exposure
The alphabet has many alternate glyphs, to construct the ideal word design or phrase as lettering might require, for a diverse lettering typeface to look its best.
Bouleversé typeface, lower case alphabet with alternate characters and joints.
Bouleversé meaning
(de bouler et verser)
FRANÇAIS :
1. Mettre en complet désordre un lieu, des choses
2. Modifier totalement quelque chose, en faire disparaître l'organisation
3. Troubler profondément quelqu'un, lui causer une émotion violente
4. Être profondément ému ; manifester une grande émotion
1. Mettre en complet désordre un lieu, des choses
2. Modifier totalement quelque chose, en faire disparaître l'organisation
3. Troubler profondément quelqu'un, lui causer une émotion violente
4. Être profondément ému ; manifester une grande émotion
ENGLISH:
1. Stricken, overwhelmed
2. Shattered, overturned
3. Confused, disordered, mentally confused
1. Stricken, overwhelmed
2. Shattered, overturned
3. Confused, disordered, mentally confused
We all bleed the same color. Quote from a friend and artist at Guida, Madrid
The word is empathy.
Some capital letters and glyphs in development.
knowledge, enlightenment, unbelieve...
Dermatography
Tattoo typeface
I want to give thanks to my beautiful family for their unconditional support, for the amazing experience with my wonderful colleagues and research team: Alex Johnson, Martin Maaloumi, Caitlin Scanlon, Leanne Waldal, Alexa Ermakova, Ben Crabtree, Barbara Mason, Henning Breuer, Philipp Schreiber, Kiril Ivanov, and to Justyna Pannetier.
Professor Dennis Ichiyama
This project is dedicated to my typography design mentor and great friend Dennis Ichiyama, who taught me about the power of typography and its relevance in creating effective visual communications. Sadly, I have not been able to talk to or know about his whereabouts since covid-19 started. Miss you Dennis and hope you are well. Eternally grateful!
The power of words
Thanks for watching and I hope you enjoyed it!
© 2020-2022 Manuel Olmo Rodríguez
