People say that the world changes but that things don’t change. I say Vells. When the city did not yet have its name, prehistorians made tools there. Those who came after buried their dead in urns. Others left gold coins, jewelry, earthenware and swords behind them. The town was given the pretty name of Ovilava. It had grain, stones, bricks and pottery. Attila came and Ovilava lost its rights. Time is like rubber. We never know what the future holds in stock for us or what it retains of the past. But the present always stands. That being said, one shouldn’t stretch one’s meaning too much. One day, Trolitul was synthesized, and laser beams were invented. Today in the city, millions of rubber stamps are made. Names change but things don’t change. I want to print a tender thought in the book of history. Cao tchu, in the Quechua language, means crying wood. I stamp Vells and no longer know where I stand.

Vells Mono was designed as part of the visual identity of studio SSSVLL. Since 2008, Guillaume Sasseville has been researching the common: the fermata where materials, object, space and usage unite. Vells, a monospace font, inspired by the molded letters of rubber stamps, bears the mark of the common. The contours of its compact imprint are malleable, and it can inflate to adapt to all scales. Vells was made to imprint materials according to all known processes, and it can do it without ever losing its bounce.

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