INTERVIEW
Lena Weber
Operating at the intersection of visual communication, technology, and philosophy, Lena Weber is a Weimar and Berlin-based graphic system designer, creative coder, and type designer who is actively redefining the modern designer’s role. Lena specializes in developing modular design tools, generative graphics, and experimental typography through her independent foundry, Monomodular, widely recognized for projects like her typeface Gradial. In this interview, we dive into her unique transition from traditional graphic design to creative programming, her philosophy on embracing technological limitations, how she builds open-ended digital systems that invite users to break the rules and explore unexpected visual territories, and her upcoming workshop for the School of Systems.
Martin: In a creative landscape that often equates “freedom” with having limitless options, why do you find strict limitations so liberating?
Lena: I feel like “zooming in” or analyzing something quite closely creates an understanding that creates freedom in itself. Once you understand certain limitations, you can play, break and hack the system.
Martin: What shifted in your mindset when you moved from using traditional design software to building your own custom design tools? How has being a tool-maker changed your perspective on industry-standard applications?
Lena: There is a certain diversification that comes with creating your own tools. One feels like certain aesthetics can be more custom or explorative once you created the rules yourself. Mostly though I feel like it gives you the ability to view even the smallest systems as tools. A tool sometimes can only make one thing or solve one problem.
Martin: When guiding students through the process of transforming physical, tactile inputs into algorithmic, digital outputs, what are the biggest challenges they face? How do you teach them to maintain the spontaneous, organic qualities of analogue work within the rigid structure of code?
Lena: The biggest challenge I see is students thinking in complicated results from the first second. The learning curve in coding forces you to appreciate the joys of a simple movement or mathematical operation. That excitement is something that I hope to share and teach. Patience is an important skill that I myself haven’t mastered for sure.
Martin: As variable font technologies, generative layout systems, and creative coding become increasingly foundational to contemporary design, how do you see design pedagogy changing? What essential skills should the next generation of type designers focus on to stay experimental?
Lena: Viewing everything as a tool. Questioning your work, your tools and your results, always looking for options and variation. Not to forget, working with a specific content and learning how to communicate effectively are skills that are needed, however the technology landscape evolves.
Martin: I am really excited about you giving a workshop at the School of Systems. Can you tell us what we can look forward to?
Lena: Exploring how we can hack the variable type technology to create moving systems. We’ll be inspired by the limitations and possibilities of interpolation. It’s all about animation and play.
Thank you Lena!
All of the animations you saw in this interview were created by Lena with Glyphs. If you would like to learn from the master, head over to Lena’s workshop page and book your place. We have limited places available, so don’t wait too long: https://schoolofsystems.org/workshops/variable-typo-graphy/