We have a fabulous selection of international guests critics visiting us at TypeParis Summer25. We wanted to find out a little more about each of them, so have presented them with a series of questions which they have generously taken the time to answer. Discover Diana Ovezea’s interview.

Biography Diana Ovezea is a Romanian-born type designer and typographer based in Zwolle, The Netherlands, and a graduate of the Type and Media class of 2013. She has worked with multiple type foundries, gaining extensive experience in developing and proofing complex font families. Since 2021, she has co-run Blast Foundry with Barbara Bigosińska, offering custom type solutions and quality assurance services to clients and foundries like CoType, Sociotype, and ITF.

Interview

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What’s your favourite way to start the day?

Diana Ovezea I usually start my day with a coffee or two, sometimes three. Since I work for myself, I have the flexibility to adjust my schedule. Living in a place where sunny days are numbered, I sometimes shift my work to later in the day so I can enjoy the morning or get outside. I’m not really a morning person anyway, so having that freedom is great. I generally prefer a dedicated workspace, though the past few years I had to be flexible because of Covid and moving houses. I spent about a year working from my dining table, which wasn’t ideal, so I’m really grateful to have my own workspace again now in our new house. Depending on what I’m doing, I switch between a bouncy chair and a tiny couch. This helps me mentally shift between creative work, emails, and technical stuff like kerning or font QA.

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Favorite kind of music to listen to while working?

Diana Ovezea I definitely don’t prefer absolute silence. I usually listen to dance music with a strong beat to keep my energy up. Sometimes, I’ll put on a TV series or background noise during repetitive tasks — I don’t really listen to it, but it weirdly helps me focus.

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What is your ratio of self-initiated typefaces vs. typefaces for clients?

Diana Ovezea I’d say about 80% of my projects are for clients and 20% are self-initiated right now. While I love being creative, I’ve found that I thrive when I’m working within someone else’s creative vision. Collaborating with clients, especially larger agencies, really energizes me. It’s like a creative ping pong match: they bring the concept and brand insight, and I bring the technical and design expertise — we both play into our strengths. That dynamic gives me so much fulfilment, that it often sparks creative energy for new font ideas. I do want to shift the balance a bit and release more of our own work, but client projects take priority for now.

“Collaborating with clients, especially larger agencies, really energizes me.”‍

– Diana Ovezea

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What’s your approach designing for an unfamilliar language or script?

Diana Ovezea For me, it’s really important to approach designing for languages or scripts I’m not familiar with a lot of respect. If you’re not deeply familiar with the language or culture, teaming up with native experts is a must. When I’ve worked on Greek or Cyrillic, I’ve always relied on specialists to help guide the process and ensure everything’s accurate and culturally appropriate. It’s a learning process, and that feedback loop is invaluable. If it’s a personal or experimental project, you can be more flexible. But for commercial work, I think authenticity and quality are super important.

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What do you think of this trend of free fonts?

Diana Ovezea Free and open source fonts aren’t just a trend; they’ve been part of the industry for a long time now. While I do take issue with the flood of low-quality fonts and unsustainably low pricing, it’s important to remember that free doesn’t automatically mean bad. There are excellent free fonts out there that have had a lot of care and investment put into them (like IBM Plex and the fonts on Fontshare). In the end, clients will choose what fits their needs, and those who value quality and craftsmanship will find their way to the right place.

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Do you remember when you decided to pursue your career in design and who were your mentors?

Diana Ovezea In high school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do — I just knew I wanted something that combined math, creativity, and psychology. Then one day I stumbled on a university brochure in our counseling office, and it clicked that graphic design might be the perfect fit. It felt like the answer to all my questions. I didn’t have a portfolio yet, so I did a foundation year, and then went on to study graphic design at the New Design University in St. Pölten, Austria. That’s what set me on this path. I was really lucky with my teachers at there — they were deeply passionate about typography and typefaces, and their enthusiasm was contagious, especially our calligraphy teacher Giovanni de Faccio. One day, our typography teacher Ulli Pötschke told me about the TypeMedia master’s in The Hague. She had full confidence that I should apply and that I would get in. To my huge surprise, I did, and that’s where my journey into type design really took off. After TypeMedia, it was also one of our teachers, Paul van der Laan, who offered me a job, became my mentor, and taught me many of the foundational skills that led to the next steps in my type design career.

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“You really have to love it and be ready for a long journey. It’s not all about designing beautiful letterforms; the industry has grown so much that you can now specialize in niches others haven’t tapped into yet.”‍

– Diana Ovezea

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Do you have words of wisdom for starting designers?

Diana Ovezea You really have to love it and be ready for a long journey. It’s not all about designing beautiful letterforms; the industry has grown so much that you can now specialize in niches others haven’t tapped into yet. Whether it’s marketing, content creation, or font engineering, finding your niche can really set you apart. Dedication, passion, and a respect for the craft will help you thrive in this field.

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Thank you very much Diana !

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– Interview by Laimė Lukošiūnaitė

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