LB Papillon

I wanted the Roman to provide the ground. Its upright stems, high contrast, and firm construction give the letters a composed posture, while unusual proportions, sharp details, tall x height, and occasional shifts in stress keep them from feeling still. The forms are familiar, but there is often something slightly strange in the way they are drawn. A bowl may become unexpectedly large, a curve may carry its weight in an unusual place, or a sharp serif may meet a flat top where a more conventional solution might be expected.

During the process, I encountered lettering from early Olympic posters, Stockholm 1912, Anvers 1920, Amsterdam 1928, and Helsinki 1940. They gave me the missing piece I had been looking for but could never quite name. What drew me in was the freedom with which individual letters were treated. Capitals could differ considerably in proportion, bowls could become unusually generous, and connections between letters could form compositions of their own. It reinforced something I already wanted from Papillon: consistency without making every letter behave in exactly the same way.

One of the decisions that shaped Papillon was to let certain letters be strange on purpose. I did not want every form to resolve into the most expected or harmonious solution. Some letters needed to feel more pointed, more exaggerated, or simply more peculiar than their neighbours. The italic ‘c’ and ‘h’ are good examples. Their curves hint briefly at wings. What mattered more was giving them an exquisite, unapologetically sharp character that could interrupt the rhythm in just the right way.

The Italic is where the idea of movement becomes much more explicit. It leans at 20 degrees, but I pushed some of its diagonal strokes even further forward. In letters such as ‘A’, ‘V’, and ‘W’, the straight stems seem to hold the forms in place while the diagonals pull away from them. That tension between stability and motion became central to the Italic for me. I wanted it to feel like something still touching the ground, but already on the verge of taking off. A full set of swashes lets that movement continue further, with strokes that loop, sweep, and reach into the surrounding space.

The capitals are probably where Papillon feels most alive to me. Typing them feels a little like watching a butterfly in flight. You know where it is heading, but you can never quite predict how it will move along the way. Certain letters change their form according to the letters around them, allowing combinations to grow into increasingly intricate compositions. An ‘R’, for example, can take several different forms depending on its neighbour, and longer sequences can lead to much more elaborate results. OpenType makes these changes happen automatically, but the idea behind them is simple. I never wanted the letters to simply sit beside one another. I wanted them to react to one another.