Output details

Jara: typeface design

This research for the design of a typeface for popular visual communication across greater distance was undertaken for the International Typeface Design Competition in Tokyo, Japan, operated by The Morisawa Corporation. The typeface was awarded one of the typographic world’s most prestigious design prizes, The Akashi Award, following judging by significant practitioners including Matthew Carter (MacArthur Fellow, Professor at Yale) and Kenya Hara (Design Director at Muji). This achievement follows similar successes in 1996, 1999 and 2002.

The work augments investigations into Kazimir Malevich's use of black squares within Suprematism and adopts the square as a unit of orthographic meaning; the typeface design seeks to eliminate the counterspace within each lettershape. The research is, in principle, a contemporary paraphrasing of Blackletter (the model for Gutenberg's first typeface c. 1450). In further reference to Gutenberg’s innovative practice, the development included the creation of approximately 200 ligatures.

As ever in type design, the technical and testing investment in the research is significant, but intends its invisibility to the end user. Thus, the functionality of these lettershapes, interpreted in a Barthesian paradigm of connotative signification, allows further research into issues of legibility and cognition counterpointed by the emotional resonance of orthographic communication. The Morisawa Corporation will develop a family of designs for public release which are based on the conceptual underpinnings of this typeface.