Fred Smeijers, design sheet for Quadraat, 1992.
Fred Smeijers, Dutch graphic designer, formed a design studio called Quadraat in 1992, in Arnhem.
Punch cutting is a 16th century way of making type that Quadraat, the typeface, is based upon. A counterpunch is a punch that makes punches.
When making a piece of type for a letter press, the original was cut on a steel punch, then a mould was made from it, and then type was cast from the mould. To cut the original letter, the steel had to be cut with sufficient depth into the matrix. Internal curves and angles are extremely difficult to cut deeply, so a tempered steel counterpunch, harder than the matrix, was used to cut the negative spaces inside the letter. The counterpunch, used for each letter gave a consistency to the corners and curves.
Smeijers wrote a book about this, Counterpunch: making Type in the 16th Century, Designing Typefaces Now.
In terms of writing, it is always interesting to find that no matter what the historical investigation, or the mechanics of making a font today, there is this scrap of paper where the letters are drawn out by hand; where the writing of the letters, the drawings, are so delicate.