design

The inspiration behind AT Kyrios, the process of making it, and what makes it unique.

I'm obviously a giant fan of both Kyrios and ArrowType given Kyrios is all over this site as both our wordmark and headers. So it was a ton of fun to learn about Stephen's process from start to finish, especially the photos of the graveyard monument that was used as heavy inspiration for the typeface. I still buy blackletter typefaces like they are my lifeblood, but to this day, nothing has surpassed the love I have for Kyrios, with it's fun, psychedelic styling on top of a structured and elegant blackletter font. It doesn't hurt that Stephen made the /// glyph/ligature you'll see in the title of this post after I specifically requested it.

Areal, a “revival” of Arial, is based on the first version of Arial that was used on the internet (v2.82). It’s entirely redrawn and rebuilt from the ground up. Most revivals draw on analog artefacts like antique books, record covers, posters, etc. But Arial has always been a digital typeface, born in the computer age, which means its earliest traces existed only as a software running on hardware that barely exists anymore.

I've long been a fan of Dinamo Type and a long time user of Are.na so when they first announced Areal awhile back, I thought it was a wonderful project and something I wanted to get my hands on immediately. Well, a few months later, here we are and it's free for all! And in tons of varieties including variable fonts.