Cloud Type Explores The Rhythm, Flow, and Space Of Fonts

The innocent act of laying in a field of grass and looking up at the endless sky while deciphering and discovering the shapes that the clouds form is an act we should all carry into adulthood. It brings a sense of wonder into our world that often lacks just that.

Reading The Sky is the fourth edition of UPO (Unidentified Paper Object, from Edition Non Standard editor Elodie Boyer) that showcases the watercolors of the Finnish artist Aino-Maija Metsola with stanzas by Daniel de Roulet, translated into English with delicacy by Pierre Rusch.

While this edition was complete with writing and visuals, it needed a typeface to balance the two. So designer Rejane Dal Bello of Studio Rejane Dal Bello created a typeface that took the literal sense of this edition's name and turned it into a magical exploration of textures, shapes, and patterns. The typeface is rightfully named "Cloud" and gets made up of a representation of each letter in the form of, you guessed it, cloud-like figures.

The result is a playful, mysterious, conceptual, and witty font that, while not meant for the act of reading per se, is unquestionably an innocent exploration of visual text as we know it.

This UPO 4 (Unidentified Paper Object) Reading The Sky shows watercolours of the Finnish artist Aino-Maija Metsola, together with stanzas written “on site” by Daniel de Roulet, translated into English with delicacy by Pierre Rusch. Rejane Dal Bello is the designer of this UPO 4, just like for the first three other UPOs. She has shaped it as a type specimen. We believe that beauty is our last resort. We also fight against the idea of borders. In this UPO, there is no territory dedicated to text, design nor art, we intertwin the authors and their productions for our immense pleasure. The paper is actually the last author, showing a new side of the book through its amazing opacity/ transparency

"All was left to do was to get the pieces together. We had the text, we had the images, we had the title : Reading the sky. Rejane Dal Bello took the title litteraly, she went on from there to design an alphabet, a typography called Cloud. So what you’re holding in your hands is a specimen of the printing character Cloud 1. You’re starting to identify a pattern, Rejane Dal Bello has left her publisher’s trace in designing the UPOs, one can recognize her rhythm, her flow, her space. I hope this UPO, by its beauty, will help heal our rainy bodies.”