Lalibela, a new font family from CyberGraphics
My motivation for designing the Lalibela family (which is based on Bodoni) was to pay homage to Ethiopic script. The script has been around for about 3 000 years, but I took artistic licence to deviate from the original model and add personal touches. I chose Bodoni as a historical model because of its display value and not its text size use because the extreme contrast made it difficult to read at small sizes. A Modern typeface characterized by consistently horizontal stress, flat and un-bracketed serifs, and a high contrast between thin and thick strokes, were the final step in typography two-hundred-year journey away from calligraphy. The austerity, simplicity and greater contrast style was perfected. The universality of this expressive typeface can be tested out on a variety of sites, from more commercial sites like Casino.com to those which focus on design and creativity.

Contrary to all the refinements in Bodoni, I have revisited calligraphy with the font Lalibela that mimics Ethiopic Script. It was drawn with a much larger x height and less geometric than Bodoni for its primary use as a display font. For example, a lot of italic serifs were added to the roman face as well as 16 additional ligatures to obtain more a feel of calligraphy. I made the serifs thicker and bracket one side with straight steps obtaining a reduced contrast to withstand breaking up at smaller sizes. The complete font can be viewed on the foundry page.

An additional variant, ‘Lalibela Alternate’ was designed to provide an interesting mixing possibilities with the Bold face for more expressive headlines. All the characters in the ‘Alternate’ were changed besides the o, 0, 1 and 2. I changed the caps into small caps so that they don’t stand out too much but is more reminiscent of the fact that there are no upper case distinctions in Ethiopic Script. I also made use of their scant punctuation symbols like the : ; *. Little circled dots that are attached to many of their letters were depicted by adding white dots to the balls of the letters. A + was used for the period to depict the shape of Lalibela Church that was carved out of solid rock that came from a proud heritage of Christianity as well as Judaism which dates back to the fourth century in Ethiopia. The ornaments, dagger and dagger double were based on their processional crosses. An additional family member, Lalibela Regular was added for the use of text.

The result is a unique combination of homage, alchemy and fanciful reinterpretation of a Bodoni with a lots of personality.

Have a look at Lalibela in action. In typography I am exploring immersive moments through interactive media. I work on “that emotion for the momen”t. I did an awareness project with Daniel Matthews based in London, who composed and mixed the emotive atmospheric sounds about the white paradise melting away at an alarming rate. I used my new font Lalibela in it’s right habitat, to emphasize some moving thoughts. Switch the sound off on this page and turn up the volume before you experience this dynamic 2.3Mb file.