Serena

The story of Serena is a unique one among revivals. Serena was neither a metal face nor a film one. In fact it never went anywhere beyond Stefan Schlesinger’s 1940-41 initial sketches (which he called Saranna). A year later, while working with Dick Dooijes on the Rondo typeface, Schlesinger was sent to a concentration camp where he died, along with any material prospects for the gorgeous letters he’d drawn.

The only sketches left of Schlesinger’s Saranna work are found in the archives of the Drukkerij Trio (the owner of which was Schlesinger’s brother-in-law). The sketches were done in pencil and ink over pencil on four sheets of paper.

And now Hans van Maanen revives Schlesinger’s spirit as closely as the drawings permit, and elaborately expands the work to cover a multitude of codepages and languages. It took more than 65 years for Schlesinger’s drawings to see the light, so van Maanen made sure to bring them to life stylishly and respectfully.

Serena embodies the peace and calm rarely ever found in mainstream calligraphy or other genres of display type. With upright elegance and a slight Eastern touch, this typeface expertly bridges the gracefully casual with the deeply spiritual. The light and soft letter forms add a pleasant, breezy element to anything they touch. When used sparingly in titling or display, Serena is like a sigh of desire, rare but quite memorable and very appreciated.