Creative director Bruno Sellés is a co-founder of the renowned Barcelona design firm Vasava. In his twenty-plus years as a graphic designer and art director, he has been responsible for many projects, including covers for Variety, Computer Arts, and Nature magazines; packaging for Hennessy; and hundreds of graphics for Nike apparel. Less well known is that Sellés is also a typeface designer. He recently spoke to Create about that side of his career, including his advice for aspiring type designers.

Create: Do you have formal training in type design?

Bruno Sellés: I am self-taught in mostly everything. I learned from my dad, who was a design teacher, and I’ve worked with many talented people who specialize in type design. I get obsessed with things and I manage to get the knowledge I need to make it work. I’ve spent endless hours reading, drawing, observing, and looking online for technical info.

I did start very early. My first font was designed in the end of the 1990s. [Sellés was born in 1976.] I’m really embarrassed by it now. It was a learning; you have to walk the first steps of the ladder before going up. I gave it away for free as a download.

The most recent fonts I’ve released are more professional. They are more complex fonts with OpenType features and character sets that cover more languages.

It took a long time to get there. I was designing fonts for the last six years without releasing anything. I would do it, give it a rest, take it up again and revise it. I don’t work full-time on typeface design. I have to find my spare moments to do it.