Kloosterkerk lettering
An interesting typographic challenge right before summer (2026). The Kloosterkerk on the Voorhout in The Hague was in need of some renovations. This article is about one very small part of that much bigger project.
It was a privilege to be able to work with the church renovation team, the architect and the masons and draw letters for such a historic location. I hope these letters can humbly contribute to the typographic texture of The Hague.
The church has three pretty much identical doors, and visitors are left guessing which one to try. The custodians wanted to emphasise the preferred door. GVB Architects from Leiden planned a semicircular entrance in Belgian Bluestone, with an inscription. I was asked to have a look at the proposed typography. This consisted of the church name and two lines: one to be read by those about to enter, and one for the leaving. Peace for those who come, a blessing for those who leave.
The capitals for the name. About 25cm tall. For the sandblasting I kept a small blunt edge to on sharp corners, not sure if that was necessary.
The horizontals in the T and E bend a little with the curved path. Not too calligraphic or brushy, but retaining a clear reference to the pre-modern contrast. A swooshy shape for R and K: the name has five tails total and it would be a shame to force them all into formal, seriffed shapes. Something about recognising humanity in the formal.
Of course I drew new letters for this! To get an idea of the scope: there were 3 weeks to make a design. The layout of the tiling was already, uh, cut in stone. The masons had started work on those. The inscription would be sandblasted and textured. There was no time or money to get someone to carve. I asked.
I did some explorations for relative size and contrast and turned one line upside down to make it readable from the position of the leavers. As the two lines are not of equal length I suggested a fish to balance. Because fish, obviously. The church preferred an olive branch, fair enough, will not fight over that.
The layout is quite big. The tiles with the letters are 130cm tall, the diameter of the circle is over 8 meters. Even a modest looking cap height was 25cm—. I thought the lower contrast shapes I started with would be too heavy, reduced the weight, added serifs and made it all a bit lighter. I drew the smaller lines in a different style to emphasize that these are distict from the name.
Sketch for layout and proportion. Still in the heavier, lower contrast. What can I say, drawing helps to dismiss early assumptions and gain insight.
In the smaller lines, the words had to jump elegantly over the edges of the tiles. I used generous letter spacing so there would be some room to move. This in turn invited some letters to become wider. I drew the letters in RoboFont, then a script in Drawbot would read the paths directly and position them based on polar coordinates. This offered better control over each letter and some freedom to look at the text in different sizes and positions (radius).
Some of the small letters are the same for the arriving and leaving readers. The M and W for instance. This was maybe not absolutely necessary, but might definitely be a fun discovery for a shoegazing yet typographically astute pedestrian.
Chi Rho: We wanted to mark the division between the arrival and departing line. The church custodians suggested the Chi Rho Christogram. Drawn to fit the letters in proportion and weight. With some artistic license: I left out the counter as it would be too small.
Section of Drawbot output, showing the size and orientation of each letter. Keen observers will note that the upside down letters were flipped in the font, not in the layout. This made the positioning a lot easier. The angle values controlled the spacing and were tuned manually.
