Naomi Tirronen

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Dudamel is a typeface inspired by the humanist font, Garamond, and slightly infused with the gestures of energetic orchestral composers. This typeface is meant to be used for setting large amounts of text within magazines and other printed ephemera. It fuses calligraphic contrast with asymmetrical slab-like serifs to maintain an even rhythm throughout a body of text.

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This typeface was born out of a strange love for typography that many designers have, but the average person may not understand. I’m fascinated by the way it has evolved over time and shaped the way we communicate with each other. This curiosity is what drove me to design a typeface. However, having absolutely no previous experience with type design, I faced every struggle that a person starting out would. As a result, Dudamel is pure distillation of my learnings and process. What started out as blind curiosity and excitement has transformed into grounded knowledge and understanding.

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One of my biggest challenges with this project was balancing the high energy I was looking for with the calm consistency that is needed for a successful typeface. I was always drawing too many things, trying to put every idea into each letter. What helped me get over this struggle was to see an analogy between letterforms and music. Once I started to think about how the letterforms sounded as a group of instruments, I was able to create more balance.

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Although Dudamel is far from complete, I’m proud of where it has landed in the 5 weeks we’ve had to learn, grow, and design together.

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