Rentoshy

Humanist Display

2023

Jonny Gibson

3 Weights

1.0

Basic Latin

A lot of people are familiar with his work. The grids, angular chairs and black ink lines. I think it's fair to say the man was a pioneer of modern design. His lettering, in particular, has found it's way into a million different Art Deco typefaces with varying degrees of quality, usability and historical accuracy. So naturally we decided to pile on.

But while most know him as Charles Rennie Mackintosh, only a few really knew him as Toshy. And that casual angle was our avenue in.

The interplay between precision and informality became an interesting contrast to explore. What if you took his infamous lettering style, dialled down the architect, and ramped up the artist? A practice that feels almost heretical to any type purist. Like, what would a modern, hand-rendered version of that even look like? (The contextual alternates definitely help.)

Mush like his iconic artwork, there's still some structure here – it's just a bit more fluid. Rentoshy isn't completely feral, it's just... softened. The skeletons feel drawn rather than engineered. Organic curves sit playfully against non-orthogonal lines. The whole approach was about capturing the essence of the pen movements and strokes, but applying them with a touch less accuracy. Less intensity. We wanted the overall effect to feel casual.

So, if the classic Mackintosh aesthetic is the building, then I suppose Rentoshy is the slightly wild garden out the back. But with a pop-up hipster bar serving elderflower fizz and lavender shortbread out of an old Airstream.