A Type Foundry Built From Overlapping Shapes

Every glyph in the family begins as a stack of translucent rectangles, rotated until the overlaps make a letter.

The system has to survive people who do not care about it. That is the actual test, and it happens in procurement, in email signatures and on signage nobody briefed.

Rena Osei, who drew the family over fourteen months, has been close to it from the start.

Background

The method produces counters that no interpolation would give you: the lowercase g has a bowl that is slightly heavier on the left because two shapes cross there.

It took three attempts. The first was abandoned at the end of the first month, the second survived until costing, and the third is the one standing.

The foundry has released the construction file alongside the fonts.

I stopped drawing letters and started drawing the collisions.

Osei

The method

It ships in five weights, and the lightest exists only because the overlap rule broke at that size and the studio liked what it did instead.

The system survives or fails on its worst application, not its best, and nobody presents that slide.

It has been well received by the audience it was made for and largely ignored by everyone else, which the team says is the outcome they wanted.

There is no shortage of people willing to call it inevitable in hindsight. Nobody involved describes it that way.

Where it goes

Licences start at thirty euros. The construction file is free.