113-115: Font Futures

Welcome to the future… FONT FUTURES!

113: In this first of three episodes in the series, you’ll meet emerging typeface designers Nate Evangelista and Sarah Zahavi. You’ll learn about their original typeface designs (Aqua and Negative Space), as well as their process, sources of inspiration and their favourite glyphs. Nate’s original typeface is derived from feeling, while Sarah’s is derived from thinking. Nate’s is organic and natural, while Sarah’s was born on city streets. These two typefaces, their processes and their designers are incredibly different, but each is also incredibly successful in their interpretations of the creative brief.

114: Today’s guest is the legendary Charles Nix, Creative Type Director at Monotype. In the following talk, you’ll hear the who, what, why, when, where and how of variable type technology, including some incredible examples of variable type that already exist in the world. You’ll hear about the technology behind variable type, as well as the creative solutions possible for both the digital and physical world when designers are able to play with type as a medium. Variable font technology allows creatives to move beyond the binary to space that’s fluid and dimensional, exploring a spectrum of type. This episode could be called ‘Variable Type 101’ and it’s jam-packed with insight!

115: In this episode, we meet Toronto-based type designer, Kevin King, who is working to revitalize and preserve North American Indigenous languages in digital spaces. You’ll hear Kevin’s career origin story, the challenges that exist in digital spaces for minority language support, current barriers to access and the process involved in helping to remove these barriers. You’ll learn the process involved in taking on a project of this magnitude, including a research methodology that helped Kevin reach out to Indigenous communities and work with language keepers directly. Finally, Kevin provides excellent advice for up-and-coming type designers.