Specimen of Fuzzbuzz, the result of Matthieu Cortat-Roller’s Ma-Ko class at ECAL Master Type Design.

After getting paired up with another student, we were each given a pair of two words and then tasked to draw the countershape (Ma) of a given sentence. We then exchanged our drawings with another student who then refined and drew the shape (Ko), we then exchanged back to refine the countershape and a final time for refined shapes.

My two words were Dizzy and for Display, which immediately made me draw inspiration from Black Sabbath’s Masters of Reality album (and cover).

Afterwards, I went to digitize the result, and while preparing the specimen, I felt as the result was not really heavy enough to be heavy metal, which led to me more than doubling the weight of the type. The specimen itself revolves around metal and specifically doom metal as well as Black Sabbath.

Also during the preparation of the specimen, I was thinking of possible applications for the type I got inspired by guitar effects pedals (especially fuzz pedals, as they helped creating and shaping the doom metal sound). So I thought it was only logical to create a physical pedal. After purchasing a second-hand fuzz pedal and lots of sanding i was able to laser engrave the design set in my typeface at ECAL’s workshop.

Staple bound brochure, 150 × 200 mm, 40 pages