Now, let me introduce you to our brand-new power trio and their creations:

Júlia is a graphic and type designer from Bahia. A partner of the women-led branding and consultancy studio Motora, and the youngest of the group. She masterfully mixed references from vampire stories to the band Calcinha Preta to create Corax, a sophisticated, high-contrast serif typeface with calligraphic influences and an unexpected gothic twist.

Ana has been designing custom and retail typefaces since graduating with a master’s degree from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. You may know some of her work done at Fabio Haag Type, such as Passo and Passeio, but now it’s time for her degree project to shine. Gigio is a friendly yet strong slab serif, inspired by comic books, that works nicely in text while uncovering quirky details in larger settings.

And Tassiana is no stranger here, as I wrote about her release Thelo back in 2022. Like me, she has built a life as an expat, moving from Rio to Paris, and co-founded the Studio Keys, specializing in creative direction and strategy. So it’s only natural that Profane would reflect some of her findings in France, as a modern interpretation of 14th-century inscriptions in the Metz Cathedral.

Following the tradition (I guess we can call it that now), the three new fonts also operate in the in-progress model, meaning you can invest early, support the project, and still get free updates as the families develop. And to encourage you to do so, here’s what’s been planned: Júlia is working on bolder styles and real italics for Corax. Gigio version 0.1 has all upright styles, from Book to ExtraBold, and the italic companions are coming next. For Profane, Tassiana has been sketching a variety of uncial and medieval-inspired alternate shapes, and more ligatures to top the current 25 pairs.

Still, this project will always be more than releasing fonts, and in 2024 I learned that growth and loss can coexist! After many efforts to build a platform had to be put on hold, the invitation to speak at DiaTipoSP (the biggest type conference in Latin America) rekindled the flame of empowering voices and building bonds that transcend borders—I just had to switch gears and recalibrate the plan. And it remains imprinted on my brain the big gasp the audience made the second Corax, Gigio, and Profane hit the big screen. There’s something really special about sharing new work live and experiencing the warmth and validation of peers and friends instantly.

Sharing the stage with such amazing lecturers in a historic 80% women lineup event and an audience of nearly 500 attendants was probably one of the highest points of my year. And it’s an honor to use such space to talk about people, friendship, and acts of service. A good reminder that revolution is not a one-time act and that collaboration is at the heart of absolutely everything we do at Women in Type, building a community beyond one practice. Thank you to everyone who believes and challenges us to do better, bigger, and brighter! Thank you for all the powerful conversations and fun moments. Cheers to a beautiful, exciting, and joyful 2025!

1. Mikrobe by Elena Schneider
Elena was scheduled to join the series with Halunke (probably my favorite from her designs, a showstopper that references Arabic patterns), but her most recent release made me shuffle things around. With such an outstanding catalog, choosing one typeface to capture her essence is no easy task—be sure to check Birra Bruin and Konsole as well. Enter Mikrobe: a brutal geometric display family that embraces modular qualities and square counters to easily expand and compress. Impactful with plenty of interesting shapes, I love how she adopts a reverse contrast toward the more Condensed side of the spectrum, a smart solution for handling heavy weights. Available in 5 static widths and variable format via Type Network and Adobe Fonts.

2. Avril by Laurene Girbal
If you are into mid-century car logos, Avril will charm you. Actually, if you are into anything mid-century ballpen-script related, this 5-weight beauty is a jackpot. Loosely inspired by a French sign painting advertising book from the 1950s (La lettre dans la peinture et la publicité by Jean Joveneaux), the typeface features expressive, low-contrast characters (pretty much monolinear with subtle ink traps) with loopy curves that mimic a dynamic continuous gesture. Look at that lowercase “g”: hot! Or its entire set of caps: stunning! It’s also nice and refreshing to see a double-story “a” in this context. And judging by Laurene’s Instagram, we have Cyrillics in the works.

3. Sandhouse by Sandra García
Sandra and Dafne Martínez together form Tipastype, a fellow initiative dedicated to promoting the work of women in the field of typography while creating educational content in Spanish and their own typefaces—like Sandhouse, a bubbly display font named after American graphic designer and educator Louise Sandhaus. Radiating warmth, this project started from a single letter “a” during the #36daysoftype challenge, and now covers over 200 languages—clearly giving meticulous care to its accented characters. Exploring the interplay between low and high contrast, powered on TNT (the classic 1960s photo-lettering “tight not touching” spacing style), Sandhouse is ideal for when you want a soft sans with extra muscle and personality.

4. Foldit by Sophia Tai
Sophia just changed the game with Foldit, her origami-inspired typeface with variable gradient properties—yes, now it’s technically possible. Working with Google Fonts, she helped develop the support for a new COLRv1 format in browsers and desktop apps while creating a design that bends dimensions, as the name suggests, based on a folded paper strip. Want to use the 8 static instances on Adobe? No problem. Figma stan? Here’s the tutorial. A bit overwhelmed by this innovation? Don’t miss the troubleshooting guides in her newsletter (here, here, and here). More type work? Meet Streco. Sophia is seriously as generous and sweet as she is brilliant, always spreading knowledge. But if you can’t share a meal with her—like I did last spring at Atypi Paris—check out the Fontathon crew, and her occasional livestreams on Twitch.

5. Monochromic by Lynne Yun & Tamara Segura
Lynne was my TA during Type@Cooper, and beyond sharing letter-drawing wisdom, she always graciously talked about breaking into the industry and what working for a big foundry is like. So I’m thrilled to finally feature her work: Monochromic, co-designed with Mexican designer Tamara Segura, brings chill vibes and nice quirks (like the turned-in n/h/u and convex diagonals) to the coding genre. Perfect for information-dense applications—from programming environments to technical manuals—it manages to soften the interface while keeping those essential tech vibes intact. Also, do yourself a favor and peek into her school, Type Electives.

✷ Footnote: And because we are here to celebrate, I have to mention a few other releases that caught my eye from these incredible designers previously featured in the series: Moulin by Sandrine Nugue, CoFo Gothic by Maria Doreuli, Min Sans Stencil & Waverse by TienMin Liao, Baustraße by Franziska Weitgruber, and Tonka by Céline Hurka 💕

1. Invert by Anna Khorash
Let’s face it, Anna is nothing short of a wizard. And Invert is poised to bend your mind. This experimental variable typeface explores the interpolation between positive and negative, or should we say the exchange between letter and counter shape. There are 4 static styles (Black, White, and its italics), but the magic happens in movement—which greatly influenced the design process as straight geometric forms provided better control in the transition. Want to hear more about all the intricacies behind this project, as well as what’s next? Check out the podcast Talk Paper Scissors, or enjoy the recording of Future Fonts’ HyperTalks 2.0. Another Type and Media graduate, Anna is skilled in Latin, Cyrillic, and Hebrew, and a frequent collaborator at Contrast Foundry (e.g., CoFo Meteor). But her master’s thesis, Loza, is one I’m counting the days to see out in the world.

2. Aeroplan by Nina Faulhaber
Interpreting a 1916 font within modern standards is what Nina set out to do during her Bachelor’s in Augsburg, Germany. Aeroplan started as a revival project of a custom typeface found in an aircraft engine publication (thus the fitting name), and was later updated into a versatile text family of 8 styles (4 uprights and 4 italics), available in static and variable formats. Its classical and bookish appearance, combined with a sculpting quality that captures the best characteristics of metal type with a healthy dose of personality, makes it an excellent choice for a reading serif with slightly wider proportions, sharp edges, and distinctive italics. An instant favorite since being announced as TypeTogether’s Gerard Unger Scholarship winner in 2021, proving that vision, skill, and patience go hand in hand in the type world.
🏆 Aeroplan was granted a CA’s Award of Excellence in 2023.

3. Dash by Petra Dočekalová
I first met Petra at Typographics, back in 2016, and ever since I have been wishing to see her energetic sign-painting alphabets turned into a retail font. That still hasn’t happened, but her penmanship mastery was definitely put to good use in Dash. A complex project resulting from scientific research into educational cursive models and the evolution of handwriting in the Western world. Dash is a system of connected script typefaces in 4 speeds, 6 weights, and a tracking slider, covering expressions from highly gestural and distinct shapes to a more essential model with plenty of localized letterforms that will automatically switch based on the language used. I’d highly recommend reading Typotheque’s post and, especially, diving into the database of over 550 samples—the study can be consulted and used by anyone interested.

4. PVC Express by Hélène Marian
Touching upon the sign-lettering topic, let’s talk about PVC Express, the latest addition to the funky and versatile PVC family. Express is the fastest variation of Hélène’s hand, developed over years of labeling family and friends’ Christmas presents. Everything is about speed here, as a single circular movement drives the construction of all letters—a succession of casual marker strokes now synthesized to work as a digital font without losing vitality or dynamism. Sharing a common background in signage but varying in the tools employed, the (ongoing) polymorphous type concept covers 4 other styles: Menu, Promo, Banner, and Dynasty; all released via Production Type. Paraphrasing Hélène, the Express ductus might offend some calligraphers in the room, but will surely make killer posters and book covers.

5. Limerick by Fanny Hamelin
When I moved to NY, I was obsessed with mosaics and did a series of experiments around the square module, and the many ways it can be divided into equal parts. Little did I know, I could have saved loads of time by converting these projects into pixel fonts. More strategically, Fanny combined her passion for type design and embroidery into Limerick. Inspired by cross-stitch charts, at the intersection of tradition and technology, its variable structure (yes, you read right, it interpolates) is composed of different shapes, giving each style (Clover, Mosaic, Star, Lozenge, Octogone, Square, Circle, Flower) a special texture. Beyond the innocent look, this display typeface is fully functional with accents, numerals, arrows, and (of course) over 100 dingbats from ornaments to flowers, birds, and insects. Who said you need to master point structures, curves, and béziers to create beautiful typography?

Flavia Zimbardi is a Rio de Janeiro-born type designer and the mastermind behind the collaborative Women in Type project. She spoke with Elizabeth Goodspeed about her typography education, the influence of her Brazilian roots, and how working as a bartender made her a better designer.

Elizabeth: Hi Flavia! As a long time admirer of your work, I’d love to know a little more about how you got started in type design.
Flavia: Type design entered the picture in what I like to call my second lifetime. After graduating in visual communication in my hometown, Rio, I moved to São Paulo and began specializing in editorial design. I worked for over ten years in the publishing industry (mainly for fashion magazines), eventually moving all the way from junior designer to art director. During this time, I used type heavily, played with lettering, and developed a strong eye for typography. And, of course, I messed with other people’s typefaces a lot! Especially working in Brazil, we usually didn’t have big budgets and had to find ways to get creative. Even though I was always very interested in type design, I didn’t consider a career back then. Perhaps because I didn’t have specific typography classes in college—simply for the lack of qualified teachers.

In 2013, we had yet another bad economic crisis, and my employer, Editora Abril, closed over 10 titles. I was laid off as a result, but, luckily, received a really good severance package that I used to move to New York! Living abroad was high on my to-do list, and it just felt like the perfect time. In a few months, I sold everything and booked a flight. I didn’t have a visa. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have anything. I just packed my bags and went like a crazy person!

Elizabeth: I’ve always admired people who can move around like that. It’s so not who I am! I considered it a huge deal when I moved two hours outside of New York, and probably thought about it for three years before finally taking the plunge. I can only imagine how intense it is to be somewhere as a real expat, not speak your native language. I think it takes a lot of chutzpah!
Flavia: I believe moving anywhere takes guts. I have bounced around a lot, and after continent number three, I can confidently say that it does get easier. When I first moved to São Paulo, it was excruciatingly hard. Adapting to New York was somehow less difficult, and Berlin even less.

Elizabeth: How soon after you got to New York did you apply to Type@Cooper?
Flavia: It took me a couple of years to create enough work focused on letterforms to apply. And honestly, I didn’t think I would be accepted. But, I did get into the Extended Program—somehow—and from there, everything started making sense. I fell in love with it, basically, and decided I was never going back to graphic design.

It’s funny that you mentioned being a “real” expat because I remember having to sit really near Sasha Tochilovsky during his classes, otherwise, I couldn’t understand a word. Sasha is quite soft-spoken and it was helpful to read his lips to connect the movements and sounds together. It also took me a while to be truly comfortable chatting with my New Zealander TA Fred Schallcrass. It’s one thing to be fluent in a language, but another thing to master all the different accents and expressions while learning a completely new discipline.

Elizabeth: That’s interesting, because I did the Condensed Program, and I actually ended up being one of only a handful of New Yorkers in a class of mostly international students!
Flavia: Yeah, the Condensed seems to bring an international crowd as it’s shorter and consequently more accessible. In contrast, the Extended usually has mainly Americans. My year was an exception, we had a very diverse class. In the final semester, once we got closer, we even started this lovely tradition of bringing treats from around the globe to class. And naturally, I had to bake some pão de queijo.

Elizabeth: I think part of the reason I’m interested in asking about your moves between countries, and your experience working and learning with so many international designers, is that multiculturalism seems to have a big influence on your work; your own typefaces have a wide range of language support and you also seem to have a personal interest in expanding this plurality to your collaborators—all the people who you’ve teamed up for the Women in Type releases are straddling multi-cultural. Like Inga, merging her experience to Brazilian references, or Ayaka and Hanae bridging French, Japanese, and American influences.
Flavia: I’m glad that influence seems obvious to you because it took me a while to realize that infusing my story and my culture into what I do can be an asset! I suppose with Lygia, my Type@Cooper project, it kind of happened accidentally, while phase one of Women in Type incorporated that angle on purpose. When Lygia was awarded by the Type Directors Club in 2018, I found out I was the first Brazilian woman to receive such recognition. And I had no idea until someone mentioned it on Twitter.

Shortly after I was interviewed by Elizabeth Carey Smith, and she pointed out that all of my typefaces seemed very different from each other, which is true. But at that time I was just trying to put my hands in as many projects as possible and break into the type community. Pinpointing what speaks to me only became clear more recently. And it’s for sure related to my frequent moves, everything I learned along the way, and all the wonderful people I met. It made me appreciate my unique perspective and learn to embrace it. There are very few type designers referencing Brazilian artists or Latin American culture in general. And the more I lean into my roots, path, and narrative, to honor diversity, the more powerful the work feels.

Elizabeth: I see such an evident connection to your Brazilian heritage in all your work. Melindrosa and Jobim are very up front about it, but even Joschmi reminds me of the geometric tiles you see in Rio, or the wavy lines of the Copacabana boardwalk. Arguably that’s a super European typeface, given that I know it’s inspired by the Bauhaus, but I still see such a link to the kind of playfulness associated with Brazilian visual culture. I think that perspective or style isn’t always something that you develop. I think often it’s been there all along—you just become more aware of it over time.
Flavia: In your chat with Ayaka, you said something along the lines, there are innate characteristics about each of us that we can choose to fight or embrace. I guess I am done fighting. Living outside Brazil, I constantly need to explain everything that happens in my country; politics, customs, arts... so I understood that as a creative, I can sort of be an ambassador of my culture.

Elizabeth: Can you tell me a bit more about how collaboration factors into your work?
Flavia: Right after Cooper I was very fortunate to begin collaborating with Phaedra Charles, who was my classmate. We became good friends and started a foundry called Undercase. But during the pandemic, Phaedra decided to study psychology, and I ended up moving to a solo practice. I very quickly missed having a creative exchange, but didn’t know other ways to bring that into my work—it’s not very common for type designers to work together that way. In the same year, I moved to Berlin and was struck by a long lockdown in winter. If you know anything about Berlin’s winter, it’s probably the lack of light. It’s gray, wet, gloomy, and depressing for about six months. That, mixed with confinement, really hurt my mental health. So I decided to take a break from design and went into bartending.

I wanted to experience the city, to meet and talk to people. To be more social. I would call it a sabbatical, but instead of traveling the world, I just traveled to an outlet outside of my main practice. Looking back, it was probably the best decision I’ve ever made. Working behind the bar is the opposite of type design. It’s extremely physical; you are walking thousands of steps, carrying crates, bags of ice, mixing, and shaking for eight hours straight (or more). And once you build muscle memory, you can simply shut down your brain and not think about anything. As a result, whenever I was back in Robofont, I’d produce twice as fast, truly focused.

Elizabeth: I have an uncle who was in the Merchant Marines, and I remember him saying something similar about how manual labor can actually be quite “intellectual”, in that the time not thinking allows you to be very recharged for mental labor in your downtime.
Flavia: Exactly. I never stopped working with type completely. Even while I was bartending four days a week, I still chipped away my typefaces, attended workshops, learned to draw Cyrillics... but the pace felt totally distinct. Because I was so tired physically, when I finally sat in front of the computer, I had more mental space. There’s no anxiety. I was just excited to put a ton of work out.

This setup also taught me a lot about business, management, and building communities. Bartending is a game of energy that transfers both to your customers and team. The better your energy, the more people want to come hang out, and the longer they’ll stay. You can cultivate a friendly environment that enhances the workflow, while more customers return and become regulars. See where I’m going? You are building community through human connection and collaboration.

I think all of this inspired Women in Type because I learned unusual ways of joining forces. Where I can be the maestro, part of the band, the producer, or all simultaneously. I also saw the power of storytelling more palpably, and how to turn it into products, then profit. Of course, I knew the importance of marketing before, but working with a commodity that gives instant feedback—a cocktail—made things easier to decode. And if I could do this for someone else, in a field I have much less experience... why was I not doing it for myself?

Elizabeth: I’ve been thinking a lot about that power of just... doing it yourself. Living in Providence, I often wish there were more events here like back in New York. But I had a bit of an epiphany recently: who’s going to start a design meetup or studio here if not me? Maybe all of the creative people in Providence are sitting around thinking the same thing, you know? I guess I’m realizing that many of the people who are doing great things aren’t always the top experts—they’re just the ones who decided to do it. And I’m sure gender is a small piece of this puzzle, too: besides the general pay gap and women charging less, and being paid less, I know women are statistically more likely to apply for jobs they’re overqualified for, whereas men are more likely to apply for jobs they’re underqualified for.
Flavia: Well, I basically went from one male-dominated industry to another. But yes, I also got tired of seeing people mainly complaining. Change won’t come from complaining! We need action, community, and real data. For example, this past summer Alphabettes shared a list of all fonts designed by women released until that point in 2023, then Proof&Co did a mid-year recap with all independent foundries, and I decided to compare the numbers… the math put women at around 24% of the representation. Twenty-four! I bet most people would guess a much higher figure. Unfortunately, there’s no consolidated data, no one is cataloging or looking at the gender gap, and without numbers, we can’t measure improvement. I am happy to instigate but we need more.

The other day I was watching Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and was reminded of the conditions for women in the 19th century. In fact, until quite recent history we were not allowed to open bank accounts or get educated. For a long time, women were excluded from professional artistic training. In Germany, this is only true since 1919 when equality was bound to the constitution. When it comes to women’s rights, and all that was fought towards fair pay and opportunities in the workplace, there are still not many of us occupying leadership positions. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that typefaces made by women are less known or celebrated—even though there’s an incredible amount of high-quality projects out there. But who is interested in telling our stories? You are right: if not us, who will do it?

Elizabeth: Has this first phase of Women in Type inspired any new ways of collaborating for you? I know the way you worked with all three designers was quite different.
Flavia: True. Although I’d have never predicted that. I simply chose the people, loosely defined a timeframe for v0.1 releases (which they called me crazy for), and let things move organically. Octavia was the only typeface previously conceptualized, everything else was open. I guess I am interested in exploring and finding new ways of pooling resources, rather than limiting who can be part of it, so I welcomed different propositions from each designer. Tida, for example, didn’t want to touch Robofont, she felt more inclined to art direct her own project—which is fascinating, I am not sure I’d have the same level of detachment.

Elizabeth: What’s next? Who is in your next group of collaborators?
Flavia: I have so many plans! My brain is already in 2050. But one thing I am pursuing and aiming to launch in 2024 is a platform, almost like a directory, where graphic designers can easily find and purchase fonts created by women. The idea is to “evolve” the collection beyond my collabs, as I am just one person with only so much time. Instead of being everywhere and doing everything, I hope WiT will be a conduit, a stage, gathering as a diverse team of female-identifying designers as possible.

When I was curating the articles for my WiT series on Contraforma, I easily put together over 40 names, which I used as a starting point. However, I wanted the first round to show that multiplicity factor and intentionally cover four continents: the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For the next round, I want to bring it back home, so I will be working with three Brazilians.

Elizabeth: I’d love to hear more about how the “Future Fonts” model you are using is working. Has it been effective? Have you learned anything unexpected from it? How are you planning to maintain ongoing updates with the first cohort while also working with new collaborators?
Flavia: The dream would be to have funds to solely focus on WiT. In reality, I will need to finish some typefaces before starting new ones. I currently have seven in-progress families (nervous laughter) and no bandwidth for a second round of collaborations.

It’s important to remember retail sales don’t pay my bills (yet), all of this work happens in between client stuff. That’s actually why I decided on the “FutureFonts” model—flexibility. Its biggest benefit is the freedom to build a cadence of updates that suits your rhythm, according to whatever is happening in your life. It makes the process more fluid and takes the burden of production way down. I also think that having a continuous flow of releases and updates is more effective when building a new initiative, as it helps keep momentum. In plain words, there’s no other way this project would be possible. Or it would take 20-25 years... It’s not perfect, and there are features I’d like to introduce, but one thing at a time.

Elizabeth: What do you hope the WiT project can do in the long run? Are there any specific tangible changes you’d like to see in the design industry to increase gender and racial diversity?
Flavia: The short answer is: make sure women won’t be written out of design history again. That our stories will be told. I hope WiT will empower, inspire, and support women to raise the bar. A place that comforts, welcomes, and allows us to create. A place of possibilities. It won’t happen overnight, but we can lay some bricks to inspire more people to open doors for others to thrive. When I finished Cooper I had no clue of how to publish a typeface, how to price it, or who to ask for advice. Let alone guidance on how to start my foundry. How many women do we know in leadership positions in the type industry? How many Latina women? Or women of color? …There are so many underrepresented voices, people scared they will never fit, that type is too technical or complicated; and even if they do take the leap, how to make a living out of it? I want to help change all that.

Elizabeth: Hi Ayaka! This is a fun opportunity for me because while we’ve collaborated several times, and were in the Type@Cooper Condensed Program together, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to explicitly ask you about how your interest in type design started.
Ayaka: Hi Elizabeth! Getting right into it—my background is originally in interactive design. In school, I learned 3D, motion graphics, and web design, and after I graduated, I worked at a digital agency, Big Spaceship, mostly designing websites for the film industry (remember Adobe Flash? haha). But after two years, I decided to concentrate on brand identities and packaging—taking type classes after-hours at SVA. I actually studied under Ed Benguiat; in his three-month intensive “kerning” course, where we were only allowed to draw Helvetica and Franklin Gothic, using marker and tracing paper. His teaching style was very classic, which I absolutely loved!

I later went on to work at RoAndCo and NR2154, getting lots more hands-on experience in branding projects, including designing logos, which is when my interest in learning how to customize type and create something tailored to clients sparked. While at NR2154, I also worked on a Japanese magazine, Free, and over time I got frustrated that we could design every element on the page except for the typeface—making me realize I really wanted to touch that side of design more in-depth, too.

I had already heard about Type@Cooper when I was around 23, but at the time it seemed too technical and specific, and I was too daunted to apply. But five years later, with a more solid foundation under my belt, I decided it was time to take the jump. Even though I designed my first typeface, Flora, in 2014, it was all self-taught; and I wanted to officially learn from experts. And yes, that’s where I first met you!

Elizabeth: I’ve worked with you on a few projects, and it always seems like you’re interested in making as much as possible from scratch—whether that’s an illustration or a typeface. Would you identify that as something important to you?
Ayaka: Drawing gives me so much peace. I always try to have my 2B pencils and piles of printer paper around. I like that when you draw something by hand, whether that sketch is good or not, it’s inevitably going to be unique because it was done using your hand. I think that’s something I learned from Hannes Famira: everyone can draw a serif typeface, in the same category or genre, but they’ll ultimately end up different just because the way one person draws, or looks at curves, is subjective. No hand works the same way as anyone else’s.

Elizabeth: I remember being in class together when one of our professors, Ewan Clayton, told us to draw with our whole arm—which made me think about the fact that it’s very different when I use my whole arm than when you do, since I’m almost six feet tall and you are... not.
Ayaka: Haha. I recently learned that I’m actually five—barely—foot one! But you’re right, the curves I make tend to be smaller as a result. I love that people can naturally express originality through their bodies.

Elizabeth: In cognitive science there’s a whole theory of visual perception called affordance—the idea that how we perceive the world is literally impacted by our physical abilities. For example, if you’re wearing a heavy backpack, that might make a hill look taller. That doesn’t really come up a lot in graphic design; how the human body relates to the actual forms.

In the case of your new typeface Hanae, there seems to be a really interesting conversation between history and the context of your own physical self. How did that process start?
Ayaka: Well, Hanae began when Flavia came to me about making a typeface geared for fashion and editorial purposes. I thought that was a great idea, and since I have experience in branding for fashion, I could bring a good perspective to the project.

Early on, I made a mood board of its general aesthetic. I wanted something timeless and elegant. We collected a lot of type specimens from the 1600s to the 1900s. Caslon specifically was a big inspiration, particularly from the 1700s. One thing I really love about Caslon is its very round rounds—but overall the typeface is still too narrow for me. On the other hand, Flavia was interested in bringing more neutrality, leading us to also look at various versions of Times New Roman.

Funny enough, while working on Hanae, I realized a similarity between a lot of the antique typefaces, like the Caslons and the Baskervilles, they were originally made by male designers. And so even the more delicate typefaces from that period, like Garamond Light, still seem to avoid leaning too far into feminine forms. With Hanae, I wanted to dial those softer qualities up. Not too ornate, but much more gentle and graceful; a softer version of these classic typefaces.

Elizabeth: I definitely see those qualities when I look at the Hanae specimen, especially in the figures—like the way the number two kind of creates an almost closed shape, or as in the more curved discretionary ligatures. To use your word, “default”, it’s interesting how this term gets associated with more masculine forms. So, I like the idea of trying to do something that’s a little bit decorative and feminine without sacrificing utilitarian functionality.
Ayaka: Absolutely. I love that Hanae is very modest, which feels like a form of utilitarianism. For example, even the ligatures you mentioned: they’re playful, but only just enough. We really tried to strike the right balance of keeping it neutral, but fun.

Since 2020 I’ve been designing a book for Sougwen Chung, an artist whose work is very delicate and fluid. Her practice involves a lot of unusual uses of technology, like building robots that can paint, but aesthetically it’s all very ethereal. By the time Flavia reached out about Women in Type, the book was mostly finished, but I’d switched the primary typeface a million times and still wasn’t happy. I was looking for something classical that would also work well when set fairly small, so it needed a tall x-height and a somewhat wide proportion. And when we started Hanae, I thought, this is perfect, I can finally make the dream typeface for this book!

Elizabeth: All of the typefaces released in this first iteration of Women in Type have a strong connection to history, but each of them has a very different approach when it comes to bringing that history into the present day and how, if at all, to make something feel more contemporary. What was your take on bringing these references into a modern context?
Ayaka: If you’re asking me whether I’m a contemporary gal or a classic gal, I’m definitely geared towards classic! But I do think that with most classic typefaces, a lot of the characteristics, and the feel of the letters, relate to how the ink sits on the paper when printed. In making a digital typeface, you can shift this perspective. For Hanae, we thought a lot about how to crispen it up so it felt less dated and suited to screens.

Elizabeth: I believe many designers, when approaching revivals, do the opposite, and try to replicate the softness imprinted on paper in their vectors—which, of course, can work well if you want to mimic the tactile warmth of traditional printing. That said, I think there’s something far more fruitful about the other direction, like this idea of crisping it up, where what you keep from the references is more focused on the formal shapes and the underlying construction, with modernity coming in through the details. It makes sense to me that you would apply your focus this way too, given how detail-oriented you are as a designer.
Ayaka: Flavia was a big factor in that, too. She makes some of the thinnest, most beautiful light weights, and she really enjoys that challenge. So the technical side of that crispness came a lot from her. Since I was working with the hairline queen, I thought it would be a good opportunity to try and make the lightest Hairline possible, without losing the high contrast. The fashion industry was another influence since many high-end brands use lighter, and hairline fonts in that space.

Elizabeth: Can you share a bit more about the new Version 0.2 that you recently released?
Ayaka: For Version 0.1, our goal was to establish the initial concept, but we had to make a lot of tweaks in proportions, on both Hairline and Regular masters, once we started drawing the Super. Since we had already challenged ourselves to make the thinnest weight, we wanted to do the same on the other end of the spectrum, making the Super as robust as possible. We spent a lot of time playing with the outlines to ensure cohesiveness in the complete designspace—understanding how and where we could add or shave weight in order to retain that graceful roundness in all styles. When you put too much weight everywhere, things really start to feel much bouncier!

Elizabeth: I love the Super—as you say, it really retains a lot of the delicateness despite being so over-the-top bold. What are you planning next? Are there other weights and italics coming?
Ayaka: I know it sounds crazy, but we’re not even close to the finish line! There’s a reason this is Version 0.2 and not Version 2.0. After adding the Bold and Super, which offers more versatility to designers, we plan to have a full range of nine weights, including all intermediary instances between Hairline and Super. But we’re also considering to add Cyrillic and Japanese Kana.

As far as italics go, like I did with the Roman, I’ve been sketching on paper first—I just find it so much easier and faster to create forms by hand than digitally. I know some of what I’m doing will be too ornate or illustrative to make into the actual font, but it’s fun and helps me define what the core foundation of Hanae really is.

Elizabeth: I wonder, did you ever take any workshops at the Society of Scribes? I took a few calligraphy classes with them where we learned scripts that remind me a bit of your sketches.
Ayaka: I have! The last I took was with Michael Sull, a master penman who teaches an incredible style of spencerian. Honestly, I should spend more time taking classes like that. There’s so much to learn from traditional calligraphy—it really helps you understand how letters work together, and where the forms come from historically.

Elizabeth: I know you describe your work as feminine, but I’m curious if you ever consider that a double-edged sword given a lot of things associated with femininity are considered lesser-than in our society?
Ayaka: For commercial projects, I only incorporate a feminine style when it aligns with the client’s preferences. But while working for myself, I don’t think it’s a bad thing, because it is an integral part of who I am.

It seems relevant to mention that my biggest life inspiration has always been Sailor Moon. In fact, the very first time I ever paid attention to type was when tracing over the logo as a kid! Both the Sailor Moon manga and show are all about embracing what it means to be a strong woman—and some of the characters are turned into men and then back to women which supports the malleability of gender a bit as well. Plus the whole aesthetic is very Art Nouveau inspired, which shows up in my work too.

Elizabeth: I love that line of thinking! The sailor scouts were all powerful characters, but they didn’t have to sacrifice their femininity to do so. Do you think that blend of cuteness and strength is something that shows up more in Japanese culture?
Ayaka: It’s been a long quest for me, not just embrace femininity, but also my Japanese heritage. During my early twenties, most of the design considered “cool” came from Northern Europe, and as a result, I tried to recreate that same European style in order to appeal to American and European audiences. At the same time, people would often comment “oh, that feels too Asian,” and they’d ask for me to make my work look less “Japanese.” I struggled with it because it would always be things that I just drew naturally, and I felt that they weren’t embraced here in the US.

I’m still learning how to tap into that side of me, and infuse it into my work. I grew up in Japan all my life and many of my inspirations come from the things, and aesthetics, I was exposed to as a kid—like Japanese food packaging or Sanrio mascot characters.

Elizabeth: Speaking more about your Japanese heritage, I know Hanae is named after Hanae Mori. Can you tell us more about her? What’s the relationship between her and the typeface?
Ayaka: Hanae Mori was one of the first Japanese fashion designers to become prominent in Western culture. She had a couture house in Paris in the 1970s and sold clothes in New York as well. She was a big figure in my grandmother’s generation; when a lot of people still wore kimonos everyday, but Mori found a way to bring Western-inspired clothes into Japanese culture. Her work wasn’t too flashy—it was graceful, something you could wear to a nice dinner or a special occasion.

We came up with the name while refining the initial release, and thought the softness we wanted to convey resembled her aesthetic; something fashionable but not too contemporary. Classical fashion.

Elizabeth: It seems like a really nice parallel for your Hanae typeface, blending your own personal identity as a Japanese designer with a classical Western typeface like Caslon.
Ayaka: Definitely. She paved the way for so many other Japanese fashion designers that are icons now too, like Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons. I really aspire to be like her, where I’m able to blend influences from both my cultures, Japanese and American, by existing somewhere in the middle.

Elizabeth: That makes me think of the point you brought up earlier, that there are innate characteristics about each of us, like the body we’re in or the culture we grew up in, that are going to come through in our work. You can fight them, or you can lean into them, but ultimately I think it’s about finding a sense of ownership.

Do you feel like there’s been any shift in the industry in so far as people asking you to make things less “Asian”?
Ayaka: I had a client who found me by googling “Japanese graphic designer in New York City,” so there are definitely people looking specifically for that perspective! On the other hand, I think I’m more comfortable with who I am now.

I know it’s a heck of a lot of work, but I want to dive into Japanese type design more earnestly. Over the past few years, I’ve started practicing drawing kana characters, and have built an extensive collection of vintage Japanese calligraphy and lettering books, some dating back to the 1600s. Sadly, I noticed there aren’t as many educational resources available for drawing Japanese characters compared to Latin. The three scripts, Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji, all have different histories and forms you need to consider when creating a typeface. But similarly to Mori—I would love to bring influences from both cultures to Hanae, and a multi-script typeface is the perfect playground for it. I can’t say when it will happen, but I am excited!

✷ Footnote: Touching on the shortage of courses and resources covering other scripts rather than Latin, check out the amazing initiative Words of Type led by French-Chinese type designer Lisa Huang. The campaign is ongoing on Kickstarter with the goal of publishing a free online encyclopedia of typographic terms, illustrated and explained in multiple languages. Aaaaaand you can pledge to lectures and workshops covering Arabic, Devanagari, Thaï, Hanzi, Hangeul, Japanese (Hiragana & Katakana), Greek & Cyrillic.

Elizabeth: You’ve been an independent type designer for quite a few years now—I would love to hear how you actually got into type design as a career.
Inga: I studied graphic design in my hometown of Braunschweig, Germany. I was focused on editorial design, and I really enjoyed working with type, but for the longest time I didn’t know there were still living type designers.

In October 2011, Dan Reynolds (type designer and design historian) came to my university for his PhD, which is how I learned about type design. When it was time to find an internship, I asked him where I should apply. At first I wanted to find a graphic design studio that focused on book design—but Dan suggested I try an internship at a foundry, and directed me to FontFont, where I was accepted.

Elizabeth: As someone who did the Type@Cooper program, I feel that in some ways, it’s easy to get started on making a typeface, but it’s much harder to level up to intermediate or expert. There’s a huge gap between just drawing letterforms and actually making a usable font. So much of what makes it an art is the technical details. I’d be curious to hear how it felt as an intern being thrown into an environment that I imagine was quite different from your prior experience of working with type as a graphic designer.
Inga: It was interesting. The internship was really technical, but they did a good job at balancing things out. For example, they offered to give feedback on any of my own projects, which helped develop my skills as a type designer.

Even though these days I’m mostly designing and not doing production work, I learned a lot of technical things from FontFont that improved my understanding of what needs to be done to bring a typeface to completion. So, I acquired knowledge from both the type designers and the technicians. And I was really into everything!

Elizabeth: And I know you attended Type Media, can you tell me more about that? To be honest, I know a lot of type designers I admire have done the program, but I know very little about what it actually entails!
Inga: Type Media is a master’s degree. It’s only ten months but it’s packed with work! Since type design is ultimately a craft, you get better just by doing it—and you’re forced to do a lot during the program. Most of the people there are graphic designers. Some have already started getting into type design, and some are even a little bit established as type designers. The first semester is a lot of different small assignments, with some 3D projects, too—exercises like playing with clay or making letters from chocolate. The second semester is focused on the graduation project.

I knew the program a bit before I started because my boyfriend had done it the year before, and I visited him every month. So, I was lucky in some ways that I knew exactly what I would be doing before I actually had to do it—though, sometimes, I think it would have been nice to be surprised.

Elizabeth: How did you first get involved with Women in Type? I know you and Flavia are both in Berlin, did you know each other in real life before this project started?
Inga: Yes, Flavia lives about 20 minutes away from me by foot! We first met in 2018 in New York during the Typographics Festival. I don’t really remember how our friendship started, but I know we liked each other right away. In 2020, when Flavia arrived in Berlin, I think she didn’t know many people, so our friendship grew quickly. And, you know, type designers like to hang out together!

With Women in Type, she wanted to collaborate and asked if I was interested in co-designing the typeface Jobim—an existing idea that she had already done some research and sketches for. I liked it and thought we could do something cool with it, so I said yes. She started by sharing the Robofont files, though we ended up redrawing everything as we decided on expanding the designspace.

Honestly, the process went so smoothly that when you said you wanted to talk about Jobim, I thought, what’s to talk about? It was very easy with not a lot of back and forth!

Elizabeth: Ha, that’s good to hear! Since you are both type designers by trade, how did you handle breaking the work down between the two of you?
Inga: We worked via GitHub and passed things back and forth. She would say, “yeah, I have other things to do, can you take over for a while?” and I would push my version further—then a few days later she would have a look, or vice versa. There was always a little bit of downtime in between each of us taking it on, so it didn’t feel too rushed. As I said, it was a little bit too easy!

Elizabeth: A lot of your existing work, like Messer (inspired by Weiss Antiqua from 1928), is historical while also nodding to the vernacular. I’d be curious how Jobim fits into this schema given that it originated with someone else’s sketches, that were in turn based on a blend of different references, from the French old style typeface Vendôme to a poster for Orfeu Negro.
Inga: Flavia always intended for Jobim to stray pretty far from the original references of Vendôme and closer to the Orfeu Negro poster, which was designed in Brazil in the 1950s, so we knew from the beginning we wanted to change things! But I think revivals are always a compromise. Throughout the process, we were consistently exploring different ways of moving further away from the references while still making sure we weren’t losing too much of their original spirit.

For example, Flavia wanted to get rid of the ball terminals so the whole typeface was sharper, but once we did that, we realized we had to balance it out another way so it wasn’t too spiky. But because it isn’t an exact revival, I had the freedom to find ways to introduce more round shapes in my own way.

I honestly didn’t look at either of the examples that closely, really—or at least, I mostly only looked at them at the beginning of the process. Especially with the poster, since it was lettering, not a typeface, and because the type was a bit too funky (and in all caps anyways), it wasn’t ideal as an exact reference model.

Elizabeth: It’s so interesting to hear that because I think the typeface does ultimately feel very historical in a lot of ways. I guess it raises the question of what it means to create something that has the feeling of being historical without it being a true revival. If it’s too historic, it’s not functional for contemporary use perhaps. How do you feel about coming out of this process?
Inga: For version 0.1 we only drew the Black Compressed, that doesn’t even exist in the original. We’ve been focused on the weight axis so far (which will range from Black to Light), but have planned a width and weight axis, with widths going from Compressed to Normal. The original has a pretty wide normal width though, so we’re still deciding if that will carry over.

In thinking about how to add or remove weight, I mostly looked at the normal, middle range for the existing Vendôme, because I wanted to see how the proportions were being handled and what shapes were there to start from. Then I thought about how to translate this into the style I was designing, keeping in mind how things could be adjusted to make the typeface a bit lighter and wider overall.

Elizabeth: I imagine this is where some of the technical stuff you learned at FontFont comes into play—knowing the final range of styles you want informs how you place the points and create the spectrum that you’re working with.
Inga: Yes. It can always be altered afterwards too, if you decide that something isn’t working anymore. Sometimes points need to be placed differently in the future because there are updates or changes. But I think the way we did it, that will not be the case, fortunately!

Elizabeth: Were there any differences between the way you and Flavia approach type design?
Inga: The big difference that we both noticed was that Flavia is more systematic. I’m more free spirited and intuitive. I already tried being more systematic when I was younger, but over time I’ve realized it’s really all about what looks best—and it’s easier to just go there directly, even if it means being more brutal with your choices. But I think Flavia’s more orderly approach gave us a really good base to work from, even if we ended up having to step away from it in certain places.

Overall, we’re not so different. It was super easy to work with Flavia because we both respect and trust each other. That’s the most inspiring thing about this collaboration and I’d like to do that more! I never worked with a friend, but it’s really fun.

Elizabeth: Talking about being free spirited: I heard a rumor that you are a bit of a horse girl...
Inga: It’s true! I started horse riding when I was eight, and I always wanted to keep doing it, but I had to pause as school picked up over the years and my interests shifted when I was a teenager. But I never forgot about it! So, after I was a little bit more settled in Berlin and had my freelance work, around 2019, I started horseback riding again. And this year, I finally bought my own horse. She’s just a baby, so she’ll have to grow for another three years until I can ride her. Right now she lives on a farm about an hour outside the city.

Elizabeth: That’s so exciting! Are you involved in any early training at all?
Inga: Well, right now she’s not doing anything. She’s just eating grass. I guess it’s almost like having a sheep! I must be very patient because I could have bought an adult horse, and started riding right away. But I chose the hard path instead. I guess it’s like type design in that way—it can take a while to get to things.

One other benefit of getting a younger horse is that I can be involved in training, and seeing how they grow. My partner and I got a puppy and it’s just been nice watching him grow and learn new things. You have a dog too, right?

Elizabeth: Yes! I love my dog. She’s an old beagle mutt mix. I didn’t grow up as a dog person but I’ve really grown into one since I met her. I think it really took having a dog I spent so much time with—and honestly having a dog that was a big weird and neurotic in her own way—for me to start to appreciate her quirks. For example, right now she all of a sudden got super into digging holes after barely doing it for the first 10 years of her life.
Inga: Our dog is the same right now! He loves digging. We cannot leave him unattended in a garden. I think your dog is a bit bigger than ours though—he’s only around 13kg, or 28lbs. He’s a whippet.

Elizabeth: You obviously love animals—would you ever want your horse to be closer to you, or to have more animals?
Inga: A lot of people dream of having their horse in their backyard, but I’d like to spend my time more with the animal, and not with their poops! But, even though she’s a train ride away, she’s already met six type designers; people are so happy to have a reason to leave the city and to come with me to visit my horse.

Elizabeth: Going back to type design… I’d be curious to hear how you feel about the “Women in Type” project, or how you feel about being a woman in the type community generally.
Inga: Well, because things aren’t equal or balanced yet, we have to point fingers at the problem and talk about it more directly—at least until there are women and non-binary people, as well as people of color, represented in the same way as white men. I don’t love that it has to be the conversation, but we have to do it until things change.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I understand the feeling of it not being my favorite topic. Being a woman is important to my work sometimes, but I’m also just a designer who happens to be a woman!
Inga: It’s hard! I always thought that I wasn’t being discriminated against, but you don’t always know what you’re missing. It could be that if I was a man I would be more successful, or have more clients coming up to me with bigger projects.

Elizabeth: One perspective from starting to teach undergraduate graphic design is that in many of my classes, 80% or more of the students are women. Yet, type design seems to still be especially male dominant. And, of course, looking across all fields of design, women are not represented at senior leadership levels. Do you have any theories why type design seems to be much more rigid in those statistics?
Inga: A lot of technical fields, in design and otherwise, are still more male dominated, and I think there’s an engineering angle to type design that makes it a victim of that. And, as you said, the higher up you go in the job hierarchy, the more male dominated things are—which means that even when you have women working in type, they may not be visible. So, women are there less often, and even when they are, you don’t see their work. Which has been proven in type design history too! A lot of the metal type you see throughout centuries of printing has been cut by women, or the sketches behind the type have been done by women, but their names are nowhere to be found.

Elizabeth: That reminds me a bit of the history of programming, actually. I believe coding used to be considered monotonous “women’s work” for most of the 20th Century compared to designing hardware. It wasn’t until it gained prestige, particularly with the rise of rocket science, that it transitioned into being perceived as “man’s work.” It seems like some of the same is true of type—a lot of the work behind the scenes being done by women until it became a more recognized part of the artform, at which point it became more visibly male dominated.

Do you have any words of advice for women interested in getting into this field, or any thoughts on the future of women in type besides this project?
Inga: Well, it’s been almost 10 years since Dan Reynolds first exposed me to type design, and I think things have changed for the better already. But I’d also say that you don’t have to be a type designer to make a typeface. It’s a niche but it’s still graphic design—if you’re interested in type design, don’t be afraid to just try it. It’s not rocket science! You can get help from others, or even just learn by watching some tutorials. Even when I finished my master’s degree, I was not a finished type designer yet, after all. It’s all about starting.

✷ Footnote: On the topic of rediscovering women’s contribution to type history, don’t miss the three-year research (done between March 2018 and November 2021), also published under the name Women in Type, led by Fiona Ross, Alice Savoie, and Helena Lekka at the University of Reading—which, btw, has an amazing reading list.

Tida Tep is a Cambodian-American independent designer and art director based in New York City. Her new typeface for Women in Type, Octavia, is a low contrast type family inspired by Film Noir titles and end credits from the 1940s–50s. She spoke about the origins of the typeface, her time in the Type@Cooper, and how her love for the Backstreet Boys jump-started her design career.

Elizabeth: Hi Tida! I’m so excited to chat! I’ve been a fan of your work forever, so it was very nice when I heard I had an opportunity to interview you.
Tida: Oh my gosh. I am also a big fan of yours!

Elizabeth: Ah thank you! I have a lot I want to ask you, but I think to start from the beginning, it would be helpful to get your “self description” of who you are and what you do.
Tida: Where do I start? I mean, we overlap in what we do, so I feel like you have a really good understanding of my day-to-day. I started out working in branding at a large agency, then in-house at Madewell, and later at a boutique studio. From there, I started freelancing. Over time I burned out on branding so I’ve transitioned more into art direction, which, maybe because it’s newer to me, I am more excited by and find more interesting.

Elizabeth: I know Octavia originates from your time at Type@Cooper. What led you to their extended program originally?
Tida: In 2017 I was at Javas Lehn Studio, and my colleague Desmond Wong was a very talented type designer. We were working alongside each other on branding projects, and he would often open Robofont and just start drawing wordmarks from scratch. I saw him doing this and was like, “wow, what is that, I want to know how to do this!” He told me that I should look into Type@Cooper, and naively I thought, hey, this sounds like something fun to do, why not?

So I went into their Extended program pretty blindly with zero type design experience. Which is unusual, I think, as it seems like a lot of people have at least tinkered with type a little bit on their own—whereas I had never even opened up type design software before. I always loved type, but I didn’t know anything about what it actually takes to design something from scratch.

Elizabeth: Have you always been into typography? Or, taking a further step back, have you always been interested in design?
Tida: I think my love for design came out of a complete obsession with pop culture, which probably came out of my desire to assimilate into American culture. I was born in the States, but I’m the only one in my family born here, so getting lost in music or TV was my happy place.

Even more specifically, I was obsessed with the Backstreet Boys. And during that era of the internet, forums were really big. So I spent a lot of time on all the Backstreet Boys forums. Meanwhile, I had an older brother who was quite into illustration, and as a result, we had a pirated version of Photoshop on our family computer (don’t come for me Adobe!). So, I started making these little posters, just putting type and image together and having so much fun merging those two things. I posted them on forums and all the little fans were like, oh, these are so cool, can you make me one?

Elizabeth: It’s so interesting to hear that origin story because I feel that for so many designers in our generation—say, mid-to-young millennial—forums were integral to our introduction to design. Obviously, people are still expressing themselves via TikTok, Instagram, and other places online, but I do think there was something about the gonzo tinkering and potential for digital personalization that was possible on those early platforms that’s kind of special and maybe not around as much anymore.
Tida: Yeah. The Internet’s not fun anymore, it used to be! Xanga, LiveJournal, all of that. But I’m still obsessed with pop culture, even if those sites are no longer around. I think it was really exploring that merge of type and image online that got me into design—and actually probably explains why I love art direction too.

So anyways, fast forward to me actually being in Type@Cooper and having no idea what I was doing. Our assignment was to design a text face that solved a very specific problem, and I came up with the idea of doing a typeface for film end credits. I thought of it because they’re always quite boring, or at least more of an afterthought compared to the titles in the beginning of a film, which are usually highly considered and thoughtful. It felt like a space where you just see the same thing over and over again, and I wanted to change that. But of course, I had no idea how hard this specific set of constraints would be.

Elizabeth: I imagine typography used in that situation has to be like pretty low contrast and have pretty big counters, right? Since it’s going to be reversed on black and in motion?
Tida: Exactly. That’s what made the problem so interesting to me, even if it was difficult. I actually drew the first initial sketches in white on black—I looked at it for weeks on black, and then eventually I had to look at it on white, and it looked awful.

Elizabeth: Did you have a specific era of film in mind when you decided to do end credits?
Tida: I looked at films specifically from the forties and fifties because the type was a lot more ornate and expressive, and they were fun to look at. But, the downside was that a lot of it was not super functional, and wouldn’t work for end credits; you can’t read it very well. The challenge for myself was whether I could make something that was legible, but that also had a little bit more of a story, or some kind of life to it. That’s where the bracketed serifs came from—that era of time in film.

And, from a more technical point of view too, the cap heights had to be quite short because most film credits are in all caps or titlecase. The typeface also had to be wide because it had to contend with the black background visually bleeding into the white. Ultimately, that’s why Octavia looks the way it does: kind of wide, kind of bulbous, huge counters, and short proportions.

Elizabeth: I think it’s really interesting that this typeface, while released in 2023, was actually revived from 2017 and the depths of your computer, because bracketed serifs and slab serifs seem to be having a bit of a moment right now—as in Interview magazine by Richard Turley, or Lenny Kravitz’s toothpaste brand that used the same typeface, Caslon Ionic, that came out recently. Whereas, when you started this typeface in 2017, I think they’d been overused for a few years and it felt like everyone was avoiding them. So it feels kind of right that you came back to it now, when the world was ready for this style again.
Tida: I’m so glad you said that because I never really liked Octavia as I was working on it! Maybe that’s the reason why. But sometimes you do things intuitively without understanding why you’re doing it. I suppose one of the nice things about pausing and then relaunching the typeface is that I had time to reflect from a distance, and also to remove myself from it a bit.

When you’re in the thick of designing anything, but more specifically a typeface, it can be extremely granular. But as an art director—and I’m sure you can relate to this—my job is to always look at things from a bird’s eye view, and to be constantly zooming out. But it’s harder to do that with type. You have to really balance the micro and the macro all at once. It was a nice departure for me, to spend the time to really appreciate the speed of a curve, for instance. It’s a different mindset.

Elizabeth: There’s something unexpected about your expertise in both type design and art direction, which feel like somewhat opposing muscles. I perceive type designers as the most “tortured geniuses” in the field of design. It’s a very insular job that requires hyper-intense independent focus over a long period of time. On the other hand, art direction feels more like filmmaking. It takes a village and is very collaborative.
Tida: Yeah, exactly. And I thrive within collaboration, as well as making decisions on the fly; I believe in trusting your intuition. But you can’t really do that with type, especially if you’ve never done it before.

Elizabeth: It feels very apt then that Octavia was revived through a collaboration! Can you tell me a bit more about how that came to be and how you and Flavia got together on this?
Tida: Well, to start, I didn’t do anything with Octavia after Type@Cooper. I think that’s the beauty of working on anything within a classroom space; I was doing it because I wanted to learn. I wasn’t thinking about what was cool, or what my peers were doing, or about whether this would sell. I was just exploring in this very safe space. So, I walked away from the program having learned so much, but also thinking: no one else needs to see this typeface. I had no intention of going back to it.

Flavia and I met at Cooper, and we became really good friends (we all bonded over late nights looking at curves). She was always incredibly talented—a total boss who learns quickly and then kills it. We became close in the program and afterwards we hung out a lot. But when the pandemic happened, she moved to Berlin, so I didn’t really get to see her or talk to her very often.

She brought up reviving Octavia as part of this Women in Type project, and I was like, well what would that mean, because I haven’t opened up Robofont in forever! It was such a daunting task, you know? But she said, well, we can do it however you want—you can just send me your files and I’ll fix it up. So, I was able to step into the role of art director and oversee the typeface, rather than doing all the nitty gritty myself.

Elizabeth: I don’t think that kind of relationship happens a lot within type design.
Tida: No, it doesn’t. And Octavia is so much more improved in a million ways as a result. It’s drawn better, spaced better. The weight is distributed in a way that is a lot more intentional. But when I look at my original and Flavia’s, the original intent and spirit is still there. She did an amazing job making it functionally usable, too.

Elizabeth: Were there any points where you felt like she went a little further than you wanted and you had to reign it back in or?
Tida: I think it was the opposite. As I said, I was never really obsessed with Octavia, and I think I was too close to it. I wasn’t even sure if I would use this typeface as a designer myself. So, early in the process I wanted to push it away from the original, and asked Flavia to try things differently—suggesting that we make it sharper or narrower or other things like that. Flavia would try my suggestions, but she always thought we needed to go back to where we started. And she was totally right!

Elizabeth: Was it always called Octavia? And what can we expect for future versions?
Tida: I named it Octavia after Octavia Spencer. I wanted it to be named after an actress, and there’s a warmth and intelligence to Octavia Spencer that I really admire. She’s a sophisticated, confident, full-figured woman—and to me, she embodies the spirit of the typeface.

I think we’re going to do the light version next, or a hairline. And then there’s plans to hopefully do italics and expand it until it’s a well-rounded family.

Elizabeth: I’d love to hear more about what this overarching “Women in Type” project means to you. I know I personally have somewhat complicated feelings about what it means to be a woman in this industry, insofar as both wanting more representation, but also not wanting to be typified or pigeonholed as a “woman designer.” I would imagine you have some of your own thoughts about being a woman in design.
Tida: Where do we start, Elizabeth? <laugh>. I’m not sure if I have a good answer, but I’ll bring up a scenario that feels related. I teach typography at Cooper Union, where we discuss the history of type—which is mostly centered around old white guys. So I always try to acknowledge this fact from the very beginning of the class, that while it’s important to learn this foundation, it’s also important to take a minute to recognize the fact that none of these people look like me, or like most of the students. I think there’s something kind of disarming about that for them.

I also tell my students to be very intentional with their typeface selection, and to think about who the people are behind each typeface—it can be good to choose a typeface that relates or is adjacent to whatever the topic of a piece of design is. But a lot of times, a student will ask me to help them to find a Black type designer or a woman of color type designer. And unfortunately, I have to tell them there aren’t many to choose from. So, I guess one benefit of Flavia doing this project is you can literally Google “Women in Type” and hopefully this project comes up.

Elizabeth: Did this process make you want to do more type design? Either in collaboration or by yourself? Or did this scratch the itch and now you’re ready to move on?
Tida: Well, I work on a magazine called Tidal on the side. It’s a passion project between a small team of writers, editors, stylists, and producers. The cool thing about that is, I have a lot of creative freedom—and so far that has meant a lot of exciting typography, especially in collaboration with my friend and typographer Douglas Hayes. We collaborate back and forth, and it’s actually a very similar process to the way Flavia and I worked on Octavia. So yes, I’d love to do more work like that. Tidal is especially fun because we don’t have to overthink it. It’s just what feels right; it’s following your intuition.

After the success of the Women That Shape Type series, I am evolving the output beyond writing and growing the community by doing what I know best—drawing type. This is phase one of a bigger project where I hope to help more women overcome the very high barriers of our patriarchal industry and society by publishing their work. Say hello to my new collaborative type families: Octavia with Tida Tep, Jobim with Inga Plönnigs, and Hanae with Ayaka Ito.

Teamwork made my life far more fun and interesting in the last few months. The best part? All 3 fonts had very different processes: Jobim started from a sketch I did back in 2019, Hanae was conceived from scratch, and Octavia is Tida’s final project at Type@Cooper from 2017. Even better, the people involved have completely different backgrounds. Ayaka Ito is a Japanese creative director specializing in branding and editorial design, for the fields of art, fashion, and beauty. Her refined craftsmanship and attention to detail can 100% be spotted in our collab. Inga Plönnigs is an absolute powerhouse among independent type designers. A Type Media graduate based in Berlin, she divides her time between commissioned projects and self-initiated typefaces inspired by history and the vernacular—two concepts that we also worked on Jobim. And Tida Tep is a Cambodian-American art director and educator who stretches her elegant, yet fun designs from tech companies such as Apple and Google to the fashion, lifestyle, and culture magazine Tidal. For Octavia, the idea was to reference titles and end credits from film noir.

To prevent the dreadful timeline of developing type families from delaying the start of this exciting chapter, I opted to adopt the “in progress” model, normalized by one of my favorite platforms, Future Fonts. What was first seen as a “risky” idea now keeps spreading as a new segment of “beta” fonts, and we are here to riff on it. You can help us expand by licensing high-quality fonts for a fraction of what will become their final prices, with free updates as the typeface progresses. Jobim, for example, is launching with 1 style but will reach 48 between weight and width axes, for both upright and italics. More detailed process posts will come in the form of interviews very soon 😉

Above all, my goal is to ensure women will no longer be written out of the history of type. Never again! Citing Nadine once more, “As long as we do not have the space to tell our stories, no one else will. So we need to step up and lead.” It’s time to show the world what we’ve got and make a mark on the industry. Shoulder to shoulder. Because together we are giants!

✷ Footnote: If this resonates with you, my lines are open. I’ll be very happy to hear your ideas and suggestions… and especially to see all the gold you are sitting on top of.

1. Cardone by Fátima Lázaro
Last spring Elizabeth Goodspeed tweeted, “Are we entering a Scotch Roman revival?” pointing to recent uses of the style in many rebrand projects. So if you’re looking for the right balance of sophistication and robustness, Cardone might be the answer. Named after the prickly national flower of Scotland (thistle comes from the Latin cardŭus), Fátima’s debut typeface started at EsadType in 2016, and was published by 205TF in 2021. But despite the historical reference, she was not trying to create a pure revival; the goal was an optimized family for editorial use, striking in functionality and legibility. With 5 weights (Thin to Bold) and delicate italics, Cardone also offers a more radical and mechanical Micro version, intended for 8pt and smaller.

2. Rezak by Anya Danilova
Rezak explores the process of cutting material to find letter shapes. Could be stone or wood, but Anya chose linoleum to explore the logic: few cuts = dark and simple, more cuts = lighter and defined. The result is a mixed family with irregular slab serifs that disappear in its Black weight. The Incised cut came last, based on a script that generates chiseled inner carving, adjusted by trigonometric functions—and what a stand-alone! You can easily use this style solely as ornaments. Different from most, Rezak highlights the relationship between dark and light as presence and absence, what’s removed versus what remains. With 2 display styles + 4 text weights (Regular, Semibold, Bold, Extrabold) plus matching italics, there are 10 total, covering Latin and extended Cyrillic, supporting neglected languages like Abkhaz, Itelmen, and Koryak.

3. LiebeHeide by Ulrike Rausch
LiebeHeide is probably the most realistic handwritten typeface out there. It uses one of the latest technologies, color fonts, and clever digital script to reproduce a ballpoint pen. Of course, none of these would be possible without Ulrike’s lettering expertise and obsessive attention to detail. I will publicly say, I would never try the madness of high-res digitizing and programming over 500 unique glyphs, including symbols, doodles, underlines, strikethroughs, and everything else that gives its charm. Yes, this font is based on bitmap images, not vector drawings, which means its color can’t be changed in text editors, just with Photoshop filters. But have I mentioned the ingenious performance attribute with 3 different resolutions, so applications load only the size needed? Crazy, I know!
📌 If you are curious about the making of, Ulrike got you covered.
🏆 LiebeHeide got a TDC Certificate of Excellence in Typeface Design, D&AD Graphite Pencil, ADC Bronze Cube, Gold by the German Design Awards, and by Communication Arts—all in 2021.

4. Tomasa by Fer Cozzi
This dancing queen, named after the Chilean singer Tomasa del Real, is a tribute to the neo-perreo movement (fusion of reggaeton, techno, cumbia, and trap), and embraces its unique aesthetic into expressive flowing forms. Rooted in Latino urban sounds and visuals, this single style typeface evokes peculiarities from graffiti to a complex system with 4 variants for each letter in Latin and Cyrillic, and just enough ligatures to avoid too much repetition. As Fer Cozzi herself (whom I was happy to meet at DiaTipoSP), I can see Tomasa giving it all every time it takes the stage.
🏆 In 2021, Tomasa won the ADC’s Founder Type Design Competition in the Latin Category, the Modern Cyrillic, and the Sello Buen Diseño Argentino.

5. Alfarn2 by Céline Hurka
In 2018 I was invited by Adobe to join the Bauhaus 100 years celebration, reviving one of their masters’ less-known works. Céline was part of the team and we had a blast at the launch panel in NY. The next year, she joined Type and Media and designed one of the most innovative typefaces I’ve seen coming out of that program, Version—which granted her a thesis award in 2020. But I am here to talk about Alfarn2, a reinterpretation of the capital letters drawn by Alfred Arndt for a famous poster from 1923. Alfarn2 was released in 2022 after she redesigned the previous version, adding lowercase, more extensive language support (including the classic German nested accents), 2 sets of punctuation, and 3 uppercase widths, perfectly capturing the geometric Bauhaus style that became timeless.

✷ Footnote: In case you are not familiar with Elizabeth Goodspeed (yet), I would highly recommend you sign up for her design history-focused/trend-spotter newsletter, Casual Archivist—full of found imagery & ephemera pristinely cataloged in thematic issues (or should we call collections?). She also wrote the release post for Frere-Jones’ latest, Community Gothic. And I hope one day we can do some kind of crossover/collab 😊

1. Leluja by Andrea Kulpas
The cherry on top of visiting São Paulo, celebrating a release date with my dear friend Deia. Leluja, her graduation project at UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires) made its debut after being 9 years in the making. A text face inspired by the folk art of paper cutting Wycinanki that shines with rustic traits in 4 styles and a big set of ornaments (40+ for now, but I hear there are more coming). Designed by a Brazilian with Hungarian, Estonian and Lithuanian heritage, and produced by an Argentinian foundry, Leluja proves once more that cultural identities can and should inspire letter drawings and partnerships. The best part, it’s open source and free to use.
🏆 Leluja Regular was selected for the Latin American typography biennial (Tipos Latinos) in 2016, and its Dingbats in 2022.

2. Zangezi by Daria Cohen
Once again, the Berlin type scene delivers. I absolutely love how Daria pulls inspiration from the macabre to create wild typefaces that support Latin and Cyrillic. The fat-avant-garde Zloy (Russian for angry, wicked, and evil) is dazzling, and Zangezi is my favorite (so far). Uneven proportions, tight spacing, bouncing counters, and aggressive wedge serifs may sound like too many features, but that’s exactly what makes this homage to Salem by Keystone Type Foundry (1901) an eccentric charmer. Besides its 3 weights (Light, SemiLight, and Regular) with accompanying italics, Zangezi has Condensed and Sans counterparts. And to spice things up even further, Daria promises free licenses for gravestone applications.

3. Silvana by Siri Lee
With sharp yet charming characteristics, Silvana is a contemporary display serif with an admiration for transitional typefaces from the 19th century—especially Pennsylvania published by Schelter & Giesecke. Siri noticed a subtle printing error, a bumpy dark spot on the right side of the lowercase “a” in their 1912 specimen, and decided to embrace this ink fluidity as a signature detail. The family has 5 weights (Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, and Black) with italics, a large set of alternates, and stacked ligatures such as www and xxx, also available as a variable font at Blaze Type.
🏆 Silvana got a TDC Certificate of Excellence in Typeface Design in 2023.

4. Carta Nueva by My-Lan Thuong
Carta Nueva is more than just pretty, with over 1,380 glyphs, it’s also smart and complex! My-Lan ensured every letter combination looks its best, adding many lines of OpenType programming to her interpretation of a Spanish pointed-nib calligraphy model from 1851. An elaborate system of automatic contextual alternates that enables compositions across 5 optical sizes and has vast potential for growth. Looks like she is already exploring a multi-directional family. But if you know me well, you might guess I really wish she would add more calligraphic birds.

5. Pilot by Aleksandra Samuļenkova
Condensed by nature, Pilot is an expressive display typeface with handmade qualities and a nostalgic feel reminiscent of sign painter-style lettering. Sketched in 2012, the 10 style family was released by Bold Monday in 2017, including contextual alternates for tighter combinations, a smart underline that doesn’t interfere with elements below the baseline, and 2 small cap variants to resemble analog compositions. Going full circle, it’s one of the very few contemporary designs available in metal type via Swamp Press (an honor that I know well, having Joschmi produced in wood).
🏆 Pilot won the first prize at the Fine Press Book Association’s Student Type Design Competition in 2013, and a TDC Certificate of Excellence in Typeface Design in 2017.

Every designer featured here brings something unique to the conversation, whether through groundbreaking technical innovation or by challenging what type design can be. Ready for round two?

1. Bely by Roxane Gataud
I met Roxane back at Typographics 2017, right after she released Bely, and shamelessly confessed how I wish to finish Type@Cooper with a typeface as successful and innovative as hers. The juxtaposition of hairline rectangles and bold triangular serifs, mixed with an accentuated diagonal axis, made Bely Display a striking and stylish design that quickly became a hit. Now, 5 years later, I like to think that somehow Roxane’s fearless approach to family planning, combining 4 text styles built upon classical proportions (Regular, Regular Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic), with a display that pushes beyond conventional logic, influenced Lygia a little bit.
🏆 Bely got a TDC Certificate of Excellence in Typeface Design in 2017, and the SOTA Catalyst Award in 2016.

2. Biblio by Namrata Goyal
Biblio began as a signage typeface for the Royal Academy’s library in The Hague, but its narrow, space-saving proportions and simplified detailing make it a good fit for small sizes too. In fact, its exaggerated geometric counters somehow remind me of Minuscule by Thomas Huot-Marchand—a study on theories of compact prints, intended for micro sizes and optimized for 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2 points. Available on FutureFonts, Biblio’s current version covers plenty of accented characters, lining and old-style figures, fractions, symbols, and arrows. Next on Namrata’s list are text weights, italics, stencil, and Devanagari. Can’t wait!

3. Orientation by Sandrine Nugue
We all have those moments when we see a project and wish we’d done it ourselves, right? Well, Orientation certainly rings that bell for me. Its dramatic and playful construction, sometimes even abstract, creates a highly inventive form of minimalism. Forget Joseph Albers’ Kombinations-Schrift, Sandrine actually cites Fanfare by Louis Oppenheim (1920)—another historical reference that I love—as a source of inspiration. Initially commissioned by Thanh Phong Lê for the wayfinding system of a student apartment building in Roubaix, France, this adventurous stencil, full of surprising shapes (and alternates), was later expanded to three weights with matching italics to be housed by Commercial Type.
🏆 Orientation got a TDC Certificate of Excellence in Typeface Design in 2019, and is part of the national collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Paris.

4. Min Sans by TienMin Liao
Well-suited to editorial design, Min Sans is a sophisticated high-contrast display typeface that explores sharp and clean calligraphic cuts, bringing a strong personality to the sans genre. Originally from Taipei, Taiwan, TienMin appears to always employ her bilingual skills to play with the contrast between the Kanji/Chinese and Latin scripts. Her characters feel deeply informed by cross-cultural references, expertly demonstrated in Ribaasu. Covering 12 styles (from Light to Black + italics) and an extended character set, Min Sans would perfectly suit anything fashion and refined luxury, especially in its thinner weights.

5. Pique by Nicole Dotin
Translating the energy of brush strokes to vector isn’t easy—take it from someone who has done it. When working on ZC Casual, I often get frustrated trying to interpret hand-painted letters into a modular system, but Nicole seems to have undertaken the challenge effortlessly in Pique. This fast-moving script really captures the rhythm, up-down-up-down, in such a sparkling way, while not trying to resemble genuine lettering. Instead, it takes cues from the tool and carries a more modern and crisp aesthetic. This single-style font, with over 600 glyphs, doesn’t have many alternates or ligatures, yet its small caps were designed to better integrate an all-caps setting, different from its more flourished default capitals.

The selections reflect my perspective as a type designer who has lived on three continents and spent years building communities in the field. Inevitably, there will be biases: scripts I know less intimately, projects outside my bubble, voices I haven’t yet discovered. Which is why this series is meant to stay open and expanding. I’d love to hear your picks—let’s keep widening the horizon together.

1. Messer by Inga Plönnigs
I am very lucky to call Inga a close friend, and she is certainly one of the best type designers out there, delivering banger after banger. Magnet and Zetkin are awesome, however, Messer is still the darling of my heart. Her interpretation of Emil Rudolf Weiß’s Weiss Antiqua (1928) takes the signature upside-down “s” and “S” and expands to a design feature, present in several other characters (and !spoiler alert! this looks even crazier in Cyrillic)—a distinctive approach that Phaedra and I likewise brought to Fraunces. Messer, pronounced MEH-suh (knife in German), sharpens the edges in 3 weights + italics + a Condensed version, available on FutureFonts.

2. Thelo by Tassiana Nuñez Costa
Of course I had to kick things off with a Brazilian representative! Tassiana is a fellow Carioca living in Paris, whose work I only came across recently—although we both went to the same university. Thelo started during her studies at EsadType in Amiens, exploring publishing challenges in the digital era. The project tackles current editorial questions of coherence and legibility across media and reading formats. Released by 205TF, the family has 9 styles that apply different serif constructions and terminals alongside the classic contrast changes across its optical range: Micro is almost monolinear with slab serifs, Text goes wedge, and the Display is sharp-edged.
📌 Portuguese speakers, don’t miss Tassiana’s talk @DiatipoX.

3. Kaligari by Franziska Weitgruber
I once heard Kris Sowersby say most typefaces presented at KABK these days are much better than his first retail font, Feijoa (2007). Kaligari, Franziska’s final project at Type and Media, indeed supports this observation. A result of her fascination with naïve letterforms in expressionist art and the relation between typography and museum exhibitions, this absolutely gorgeous squarish calligraphic script includes initial, final, isolated, and non-connecting alternates—best used with the contextual alternates feature, which automatically chooses the right letterform based on position. And while you’re at it, check out Roba, Nikolai & Gig.

4. Chimera by Maria Doreuli
Proof that huge type families are not always the answer or a must, Chimera is a beautiful and masterfully executed experiment in bringing dynamism to a genre often considered outdated. The so-called reverse contrast, common in Western movies, was historically created as the opposite of elegant classics. Their weirdness was deliberate to grab attention, but Maria twists this concept once more, applying a broad-nib pen held at a steep 45° angle to transform the harsh aesthetic into something friendly. Launched in 2018 by her own Contrast Foundry, Chimera rewired my fresh-type-grad brain into pieces, and is still a one-of-a-kind beast!
🏆 Chimera got a Silver Prize at the Morisawa Type Design Competition, and a TDC Certificate of Excellence in Typeface Design in 2014.

5. Mollydooker by Phaedra Charles
If you ever considered type and calligraphy as a mysterious puzzle, hard to grasp, and almost impossible to crack, imagine doing so as a lefty. Phaedra expertly translated this into Mollydooker—based on principles of her Guide to Sinistral Hand. She developed a left-handed model for writing and expression that leans into ‘otherness’ instead of sanitizing or mitigating it, in opposition to ductus and penmanship exemplars that disseminate a right-handed centric perspective. Mollydooker is a 2-axis variable pointed brush script with fast energy, offering 3 slant options and 6 weights each. A project that will forever be special to this lefty behind the keyboard.