Céline Hurka 
Stefaniia Bodnia Can a typeface have a real-life impact? Can a typeface tell a political story? And can variable font technology create an emotional impact through movement? Seasummer is a research project by Céline Hurka and Stefaniia Bodnia that asks—and answers—these very questions.
The project was originally inspired by the handwriting of illustrator Adrian Pourviseh, found in his diaries. Céline and Adrian had met in high school, almost 20 years ago and she had seen his handwriting all those years ago. Now, much later they met up and turned it into a font to tell Adrian’s story. And through that the story of Europe’s border politics.
In 2021, Adrian spent several weeks in the Mediterranean, participating in refugee rescue missions with Sea-Watch e.V. While at sea, he processed these traumatic experiences at Europe’s deadliest borders through his writing, later transforming them into a graphic novel.
The novel, titled Das Schimmern der See, was published in 2023 by Avant Verlag and received critical acclaim from various news outlets, along with awards and grants. Seasummer was specifically developed for this graphic novel, aiming to capture the emotional journey of its author—from tranquility to intensity.
Since then, Seasummer has outgrown the story and is now being published by Future Fonts. It features numerous technical innovations, including stylistic alternates, a variable axis, extensive language support, and Cyrillic characters. However, its true beauty lies in its story and in how it has transformed the lives of everyone involved.
The project deals explores fluidity in shape, topic, organic process and afterlife, and in its variable behaviour.