The design of EB Ackerhof was initiated in 2017, and completed by Clément Le Tulle-Neyret in 2022—with the addition of a rotalic style in 2024—, following a visit to the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar. This establishment, implanted in a 13th-century convent, was delivered by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron in 2015. The facade of the new building, called “Ackerhof” because of the former presence of a farm at the same location, is covered in brickwork that displays a varying repeating pattern, resulting from the irregularity of hand-broken bricks and their changing colors. This texture creates a systematic rhythm that paradoxically produces a series of organic sensations.

Transposed into type design, it is easy to imagine a link to monospace typefaces. But how might one evoke the singularity of such a texture while adhering to a principle of repetition?

Detail from the wall and courtyard interior of the Ackerhof, an extension of the Unterlinden Museum, delivered in 2015 by Herzog & de Meuron.

The default set-width in design software like Glyphs is 600 units. This figure is then divided by two, thus producing a base value. The width of the letters in EB Ackerhof follows a pragmatic principle: the narrow glyphs (i, j, l) have a set-width of one unit, and the glyphs of an intermediate set-width are designed with a width of two units (n, a, r, etc.), whereas the design of the largest glyphs (m, w, Æ) takes up three units. Thus, the color and general rhythm give a false feeling of having a monospace typeface, while at the same time being very pleasant to read. Finally, some glyphs require an added unit, like fractions for example.

Following the most logical approach possible, the letters of EB Ackerhof are designed on a grid that has been divided into ten. All of the points are then placed on this structure, excepting a number of cases where formal logic requires one to proceed in steps of five units.

This practice of streamlining set-widths is not new. In 1883, American Linn Boyd Benton divided the quad of a new sign into six equal parts to establish his base unit. Each sign was then cut into a multiple of this unit; the i with a width of two units, the e with three, and the W with seven, with the majority of signs taking up four units.

The terminal forms of certain of *EB Ackerhof’*s glyphs, typically grotesque as with the letters r, a, and s, or completely flat, as with the letters f, j, and t, reinforce the irregular nature of its pattern.