Zintuigen by Laurens De Keyzer, Lannoo

Versa, expressing sensuality

When designing this book cover for Flemish publishers Lannoo in 2003, I wanted to express some sensuality using only type. Zintuigen is the Dutch-Flemish word for “senses” and the book is a series of interviews with people in a variety of occupations, talking about hearing, seeing, feeling, etc. So I looked for a typeface that could reference just that. At the time I was also working on Dutch Type, for which designer Peter Verheul was adding various new weights to the family that would become Versa. He lent me a beta version of its bold italic weight. To add to the sensuality, I moved the dot on the ‘i’ to become a kind of belly-button. Secondary typeface is Peter Biľak’s Fedra Sans.