36 Days of type. Various typographic explorations by Amsterdam-based designer and illustrator; Zender.
For the last eight years, I have seen strangeletter forms and other type-explorations appear on my timeline. I discovered that artists from around the world created these for 36daysoftype, an online event on Instagram. Every day, a letter from the alphabet had to be drawn. Starting with the ‘A’ and ending with the digit ‘0.’ There were no prizes to win or winnersannounced; it was just for the love of typography and to get inspired by the work of other designers and illustrators. This letter challenge was something I immediately fell in love with, but because of my work, I never found the time to get involved. That was until March 7 this year. The challenge of completing a drawing every day was hard. Some days, ideas came naturally; on others, I had difficulties finding good concepts. But when I finally reached the last letter of the alphabet, my clients patience had run out after I had been focused on this challenge for nearly a month. In other words: I just had to return to my day job, and because of this, I nevermanaged to finish the last ten digits.
Fast forward two months ago, my studio colleagues and I decided to organize the ‘Word Perfect’ group show. I knew this was my chance to complete the 36 days challenge. So last month, I created the last ten digits of the series, but hey, better late than never! p.s. I recommend participating or looking around at: www.36daysoftype.com or their Instagram: #36daysoftype.
The 36-day of type has been challenging for me, dealing with very tight deadlines and learning new illustration techniques. I did most of the work using Pro create on my iPad. I love the iPad for its portability, and Procreate was the perfect tool to record my process videos. During this process, I learned a lot of nifty tricks in Procreate and learned to create animations within the program. Next, I learned to edit my videos in Adobe Premiere and add music to them.
Sander Pappot / Zender, Amsterdam 2022
Sander Pappot, a.k.a. Zender, is a freelance graphic designer, illustrator, and painter based in Amsterdam. To see his work, visit www.zender.nu or his Instagram pages: instagram.com/zenderamsterdam and instagram.com/Senderamsterdam
Get the "36 Days of Type" book from Zender at UDIG.
