Interview: Mark Ceneso

Hi Mark, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Sure thing. My name is Mark Caneso. I am 29 years old I graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in 2004. I live in sunny Southern California with my wonderful girlfriend
Tiffany.

In what way has your education shaped your style?
My education shaped my style in the sense that it gave me the foundation I needed to in fact develop as a designer. You know, I learned the fundamentals while in school but like anything you do, you really learn by doing. So I would draw type all the time. Day and night. Night mostly.

What inspired you to create Quatro?
The inspiration to design Quatro came actually from another design I have been working on Ratio. They are sort of related. Ratio was my first attempt at creating a serious typeface and when I say serious I mean a typeface with many avenues of use. A contemporary, versatile sans serif. So having worked on that for a few years I was finally doing some tests and using it in some projects.

One project imparticular was a design for Otis College Alumni Magazine called OMAG. I created an ultra heavy weight of Ratio to use as a headline face in the mag. I did this rather quickly but it worked out. After this I began using it on other projects and each time adjustments were made. One time I used it for a logotype and this is where it all started to take on its own life. drastically increased the x-height and made several other design changes. Looking at it from that way I said to myself forget Ratio for a second here and lets see how to make this work on its own. I redrew just about every character and here we are today.

If you had to explain Quatro to a blind person, what would you say?
Wow to a blind person. hmm. I suppose I’d ask if they’ve been blind their entire life or not. You know to get a sense of whether or not I could reference anything. If yes then I’d tell them its the best looking typeface ever designed (j/k.) I’d say Quatro is like water. Its fluid, sexy. It can feel both warm and cold. It has motion but at the same time under the right conditions it can be hard as ice. Wow that was pretty corny huh.

What has the interest in the blogosphere been like?
The bloggin thing has been great. I originally posted Quatro on my site in early May. I thought I’d see if there was interest in the design community. Up to this point I had been the only person using the face so I also wanted to see what others would do with it. It wasn’t fully kerned so I figured I’d give it away as a trial version and base whether I put more time into it on the response I got. So I emailed a few people who’s blogs I check often and see if they would post it. Almost two weeks go by and nothing. Then I wake up one morning and check my email and I have almost 200 emails. I was like holy crap somebody had to have posted my font. I scan through the emails to find out that Emil Olsson had posted it on TypeNeu.com. From there it spread to others sites like FormFiftyFive and AisleOne. At this point I am just smiling ear to ear. After that it just became like a virus and the emails kept pouring in. Other sites were running feeds from blogs and people were tweeting about it. It was crazy. Two weeks later when I thought it was dying down it got posted on SmashingMagazine’s cool free fonts and generated about twice as much interest as before. Over 3000 emails later I finally had to say no more.

Have you seen any examples of the typeface being used yet?
I have seen some examples. A few folks used it on their personal blogs or posters. The most extensive usage was by Michael Green, a designer from NY on the identity of a new childrens store in Brooklyn. And also by Frederico Antunes – a designer from Brazil – used it as the display type in a skateboard magazine called Vista. It’s very cool to see others working with my design.

Are there any plans for future aditions to the Quatro typeface, i.e. more weights?
The official release of the font just came out and that has an italic version as well. Aside from that, I started a version of the ultra light which I’ve been calling Uno. I figured I’d jump to the other side of the spectrum and create its lightest counterpart. It’s funny to then look at this weight and compare it to the ultra light of Ratio. They feel similar but are definitely distinct from each other as well.

And last but not least, what are your five favourite websites?
I’m a fan of FormFiftyFive, Underconsideration, TypeNeu, NotCot.org and of course PprwrkStudio.