Detail Type Foundry

When I start a new typeface design project, I always remember my school days. In the design schools, I went, there was an unspoken rule that students shouldn’t create typefaces without special reasons because they considered type design as a kind of sacred domain. One day, a teacher asked me. “Why do you need to design a new typeface? Why you don’t satisfy to use the existing products?” At that time, I couldn’t answer the question since I was a very young designer. Today, his question has become my ground of designing typefaces. I create a new typeface only when it is necessary. I suppose that the teachers didn’t want the people without passion into the domain because they were long-experienced typographers with big respects for the history of typography. Although I knew almost nothing about typography and even design before I entered the school, thanks for the teachers and the questions, I could learn typography and the history of type design. Also, since the teacher asked me, I started thinking about what practice should I do on typography and type design in our time.

There is a lot of typefaces that are still great even these were designed hundreds or thousands of years ago. When I design a typeface, I have to face the great works of the heroes so far. It is the most difficult and wonderful part of type design. It’s also exciting for me to meet the practices of international type foundries in recent years. Because every typeface has particular cultures behind their shapes. These days, here in Japan, the scenes that people use Latin alphabets are increasing. I’m also thinking about my identity to think what I can do in this age. I don’t like or dislike this small archipelago. But for better or worse, I have a cultural background of the country. It’s hard for me to talk about my experiences in this complex nation, but I think there is a meaning to form something with this feeling. (I’ll write another story about it in the future.)

I always want to try telling my thoughts and attitude by not just talking but making forms. To me, the typeface is a media that can that, and we launched this type foundry to release the typefaces. I hope that the new designs which create the new cultures start from today’s new typefaces.

November 1st, 2018
Makoto Kamimura