Dr David Březina is a typeface designer, writer, lecturer, and chief type officer at Rosetta type foundry. He designed typefaces for a diverse palette of the world’s scripts, but focuses mostly on Gujarati and Latin. David holds a Master’s degree in computer science from Masaryk University in Brno (Czechia) and an MA in Typeface Design and PhD from the University of Reading (UK). His cross-disciplinary PhD thesis studied visual similarity and coherence of characters in typefaces for continuous reading in Latin, Cyrillic, and Devanagari scripts.

Email: hello@mrbrezina.com Twitter: @MrBrezina

Typeface design

• Adapter (Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew Latin, 2019–20). Art-direction.
• Handjet (Cyrillic, Greek, Latin, 2018).
• Yrsa & Rasa (Gujarati, Latin, 2016). Art-direction, design by Anna Giedryś. Rasa is based on Skolar Gujarati.
• Skolar Sans (Cyrillic, Greek, Latin, [Arabic], 2014–16). Designed in collaboration with Sláva Jevčinová. Skolar Sans Arabic was designed by Titus Nemeth.
• Adobe Gujarati (Gujarati, 2013). Design for Adobe, art-direction Fiona Ross.
• Nirmala UI Gujarati (Gujarati, 2012) Design for Microsoft within Tiro Typeworks, art-direction Fiona Ross.
• Skolar (Cyrillic, Greek, Gujarati, Latin, [Devanagari], 2009–2012). Own design. Skolar (LCG) was originally published through TypeTogether. Skolar Devanagari was designed mostly by Vaibhav Singh.
• Veto Devanagari (Devanagari, 2009) Design and production for Linotype (now Monotype).
• production and occassional art-direction of other projects from Rosetta

Interviews with David and profiles

• Hartmann, Timm, Sascha Thoma and Ben Wittner. Forget your knowledge: Interview with David Březina of Rosetta Type. In: Bi-Scriptual: Typography and Graphic Design with Multiple Script Systems, 2018.
• Pecina, Martin. Nowe Terytoria. In: 2+3D, issue 52, volume III/2014, 2014. #link
• Middendorp, Jan. Rosetta Type Foundry: Vaibhav Singh, Titus Nemeth, David Březina. In: Creative Characters: The faces behind the fonts, issue 71, 2013. #link
• Stuttard, Jenny. What is multi-script typography all about. In: Rosetta Blog, 2013. #link
• Falvey, Christian. Award-winning Czech typographer takes on Gujarati. Radio Praha, 2012. #link
• Lutonský, František. Interview for the Czech National TV ČT 24. (In Czech.) 2012. #link
• Pathak, Bharat. This Czech is a Gujarati ‘type’. Times of India, 28 March 2012. #link
• Stocks, Elliot Jay. David Březina. In: 8 Faces, issue 4, 2011. #link
• Fojtů, Martina. Březina: Vytvářet písma je jako mluvit různými hlasy. In: Magazine of the Masaryk University, 2011. #link

Academic publications

• Coherence in typeface design: visual similarity of characters in Cyrillic, Devanagari, and Latin. PhD thesis. The University of Reading, 2018.
• Boček V & Březina D. Typography follows linguistics? : on some parallels between the Prague School of Linguistics and Karel Teige’s typographic program. In: Hyphen : a typographic forum, volume 9/15. Institute for the study of Typography and Visual Communication, 2012.
• The evolution of the Gujarati typographic script. Unpublished MA dissertation. The University of Reading, 2007.
• Reflection on practise. Unpublished essay. The University of Reading, 2007.
• General issues in multi-script typography. Unpublished essay. The University of Reading, 2007.

Other publications

• Yrsa & Rasa released. In: Rosetta Blog, 2016. #link
• Harmonizing Rasa Gujarati and Yrsa Latin. In: Rosetta Blog, 2016. #link
• Introducing Yrsa. In: Rosetta Blog, 2015. #link
• Considerations in multilingual type design. In: Rosetta Blog, 2015. #link
• Rethinking type experience. In: Rosetta Blog, 2014. #link
• A Critical Approach To Typefaces. In: Smashing Magazine, 2013. #link
• Balkan Sans (Typeface review). In: Typographica, 2013. #link
• TYPO 49. 2012. Guest editor. #link
• Indian type : An opportunity for real design innovation, in Czech and English. In: TYPO 49, 2012.
• Challenges in multilingual type design. In: Codex 2, 2012.
• Celeste. (Typeface review in Czech and English.) In: TYPO 41, 2010.
• Tomate & Lavigne Display. (Typeface review in Czech and English.) In: TYPO 39, 2010.
• On diacritics. In: I love typography, 2009. Edited by John Boardley. #link (There is a Russian translation of this article by Vasily V. Melenchuk #link)
• Klimax. (Typeface review in Czech and English.) In: TYPO 36, 2009.
• Odile & Elido. (Typeface review in Czech and English.) In: TYPO 36, 2009.
• Březina D & Vlachou I. Maiola. (Typeface review in Czech and English.) In: TYPO 33, 2008.
• Greta. (Typeface review in Czech and English.) In: TYPO 31, 2008.
• Pecina M & Březina D. Type Anatomy 1.0., in Czech and English. In: Typomil, 2008. #link
• Non-Latin Typefaces, exhibition review in Czech and English. In: TYPO 29, 2007.

Lectures

• Dyson M & Březina D. Challenging design training: do designers suffer more with harder to read typefaces? ICTVC 7, Patras, 2019.
• Character similarity and coherence in typeface design. ICTVC 7, Patras, 2019.
• Character similarity and coherence in typeface design. Graphemics in 21st century: From graphemes to knowledge, Brest, 2018. #link #recording
• Some of the things I do not know about typefaces. Typostammtisch, Berlin, 2017. #link
• Recent projects from Rosetta. Du monde entier au cœur du monde, Paris, 2015.
• Letters of Rosetta: from Brno to Bern. TypEast, Bern, 2015.
• Challenges in multilingual type design (II). ATypI, Amsterdam, 2013.
• Rethinking type experience. Smashing conference, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2013.
• Challenges in Indian type design. Association of British Scholars, Vadodara, 2012.
• Challenges in multilingual type design. Typography day, Mumbai, 2012. Also at: NID, Ahmedabad, 2012.
• Písmo je na webu to nejdůležitější (Type is the most important thing on the Web), in Czech. WebExpo, Prague, 2011.
• Specifying type consistency. TypoTopo talks, Bratislava, 2011. Also at: Central Saint Martins, The University of the Arts London, London, 2012.
• Thinking in typeface design. ICTVC conference, Cyprus, 2010.
• General issues in multi-script typography. ATypI conference, Saint Petersburg, 2008. Also at: 4th International ConTeXt Meeting, 2010.
• On typeface design. University of Ostrava, Ostrava, 2010. Also at: Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Cieszyn, 2010.

Workshops

• A brief introduction to Python for data visualisation. At: The Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, The University of Reading, Reading, 2016.
• A brief introduction to Python for type designers. At: The Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, The University of Reading, Reading, 2015.
• Concepts for originality in typeface design and general feedback. At: The Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, The University of Reading, Reading, 2013.
• Type design workshop focussed on webfonts. At: Seznam.cz, Brno, 2012.
• Concepts for originality in type design. At: The Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, The University of Reading, Reading, 2012.
• Type design workshop/feedback. At: Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, London, 2012.
• Type design workshops. At: FaVU VUT, Brno, 2011.
• Type design workflow and running a type foundry. At: The Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, The University of Reading, Reading, 2011.
• Type design workshops. At: FaVU VUT, Brno, 2009–10.
• O písmu (On type). At: Pellico5 workshops, Brno, 2010.
• Multilingual typography workshop. At: Sign and typography studio of The Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Lanckorona, 2009.
• Type design process & automation. At: The Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, The University of Reading, Reading, 2009.
• A brief introduction to Python for FontLab. At: Monotype Imaging, Salfords, 2009.

Awards

• European Design Awards 2015 – silver for Skolar Sans Latin
• Granshan 2013 – 2nd prize (Indic category) for Skolar Gujarati
• Granshan 2012 – 1st prize (Indic category) for Skolar Devanagari (with Vaibhav Singh)
• Granshan 2009 – 1st prize (Cyrillic category) for Skolar Cyrillic
• Modern Cyrillic 2009 – special diploma for Skolar Cyrillic
• European Design Awards 2008 – silver for Skolar & Surat (Skolar Gujarati)

Exhibitions

• Granshan exhibition at ATypI Warszaw, 2016 (PL).
• Granshan exhibition in Bangkok, 2013 (DE/TH).
• International Biennial of Graphic design in Brno 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012 (CZ).
• Collective type design exhibition at Klingspor-Museum Offenbach, 2010 (D).
• Modern Cyrillic exhibition, ATypI Mexico City, 2009 (RU/MX).
• TypeTogether collective exhibition in Rosario, 2008 (RA), Cieszyn, 2010 (PL), Poznań, 2011 (PL).