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 Ramiro Espinoza’s interview.
Biography Ramiro Espinoza, born in Santa Fe, Argentina, studied graphic design at Universidad Nacional del Litoral. He taught typography at Universidad de Buenos Aires and worked for El Litoral and La Nación newspapers. In 2003, Ramiro moved to the Netherlands to study type design in The Hague and later in Antwerp. He founded Retype in 2007 to publish his typefaces, which have received Type Directors Club awards. Espinoza has researched Dutch lettering and published The Curly Letter of Amsterdam in 2015.
Interview
Describe your typical day?
Ramiro Espinoza For the past few months, after breakfast, I’ve been practicing guitar chords for about half an hour. I actually play double bass and electric bass, but I also want to learn some guitar. Then, I check my emails, delete spam, and generally make a checklist of the things I shouldn’t forget to do during the day.
Typical day is pretty monotonous: most of the time I’m tweaking Bezier lines or doing kerning, trying not to get distracted. I work for about six or seven hours, then eat something, and then practice double bass for about three hours. Then I spend half an hour on the spinning bike. When I was younger, I had no problem spending 12 hours a day on the computer designing fonts, but these days I don’t feel the need to do that and I have other interests as well.
Luckily, in my house, we have two separate home-office rooms where my wife, Paula, and I work. I don’t think I could work in a cafe or a park. I need to isolate myself in my own room and quietly listen to the music I like.
Favorite kind of music to listen to while working?
Ramiro Espinoza I listen to a lot of jazz, jazz-funk, and straight 70’s funk. I also go through periods where I listen to rock bands from different periods. Occasionally, some baroque or classical music.
Do you read the news?
Ramiro Espinoza Mostly during breakfast, I read what interests me from The Guardian and a couple of Argentine and Spanish newspapers. I used to listen to more news podcasts during work, but due to the depressing international situation, I prefer to disconnect for a few hours.
What do you think of social media today?
Ramiro Espinoza All social media platforms have degraded and are no longer a genuine space for exchange and communication. X is possibly the worst for reasons that go without saying. I don’t think TikTok is good for promoting fonts, and I think that even if it were, I’m not attracted to its format.
Anyway, in most cases I try to maintain a presence and use them to promote our work at Retype, but it’s clear that they are no longer as effective as they were in the past.
“What you choose to revive, where you focus, speaks volumes about what you know about the history of typography and how deeply you’ve delved.”
– Ramiro Espinoza
What drives you to create new typefaces?
Ramiro Espinoza I think the two most important elements are: feeling attracted to or in tune with a particular typographic aesthetic and thinking that there is room in the market for the typeface you are going to design.
Do you think AI will change the way to design typefaces?
Ramiro Espinoza To be honest, I don’t know, and I wouldn’t venture a guess. All the hype surrounding AI bothers me quite a bit, and I think it’s no coincidence that the designers most enthusiastic about it aren’t usually those most known for the quality of their designs.
Some of my designs come from researching alphabets and traditions about which there was almost no literature and, of course, no online information. Over the past few months, my partner Paula and I have been traveling around towns and small cities, photographing forgotten alphabets for later typeface designs. This research, curation, and development of new fonts isn’t something AI can or will ever be able to do. At best, the technolords behind AI will try to use it to appropriate the contours and information created by humans with great effort, then enrich their dataset and improve their “design on demand” services.
Are you someone who redraws type classics or someone who seeks to invent new forms?
Ramiro Espinoza I think I’ve often tried to revisit classic forms from a personal perspective. Often, what I do is choose one of what I call the “ugly ducklings” of typographic history (those flawed, unattractive designs from a certain typographic period) and then I improve them according to my criteria to arrive at a consistent typeface family with a certain degree of originality. What you choose to revive, where you focus, speaks volumes about what you know about the history of typography and how deeply you’ve delved.
I don’t know if it’s possible to “invent new forms.” Generally, one always has a number of style and proportion references and works from there to design something as original as possible. But it’s a mistake to start exclusively from typographic references. Letters produced through calligraphy, lettering, engraving, and stone carving are valid sources of inspiration.
Have any approaches or practices from your time as an in-house designer at newspapers carried over into the way you work today?
Ramiro Espinoza I really enjoyed working at a newspaper and have always had an affinity for editorial design. I believe that typeface families used in newspapers must possess certain attributes of solidity and sharpness (I would even say aggressiveness) to stand out. It is because of this background that when I design typeface families, I do so thinking that they should look good in a newspaper. Furthermore, I believe that if a typeface family works well in a newspaper, it will work well on many other platforms because a newspaper is a complex information system, and if your design has met its demands, it will be able to perform satisfactorily on other platforms.
Do you remember when you decided to pursue your career in design?
Ramiro Espinoza When I was in high school, I was the one who designed the student union magazine. Later, I drew, designed, and published comics and punk fanzines. Perhaps at that time, I saw myself more as an illustrator, but graphic design was already a part of my life. In my 20s, I took classes at a fine arts academy for a few months, but the bourgeois and pretentious aspects of the fine art market repelled me. The design world always seemed less elitist and more fair.
Around 1997, when I was still a student at FADU-UNL (Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Urbanism: https://www.fadu.unl.edu.ar/) in Santa Fe, Argentina, Silvia Gonzalez, at that time the head of the typography department, invited me to be a teaching assistant, and after graduating, I was offered to teach in the design program at UBA (University of Buenos Aires). I will always be grateful for her trust in me and for encouraging me professionally.
I think it’s obvious to mention the teachers I had at the Type and Media, KABK: Peter Bilak, Peter Verheul, Petr van Blokland, Erik van Blokland, Fred Smeijers, Françoise Berserik, Just van Rossum, and Paul van der Laan.
Although not part of the Type and Media course, Frank Blokland was teaching calligraphy at the KABK at the time, which I also attended. Years later, I was able to be his student in the Expert Type Design class at the Plantin Institute in Antwerp.
After I graduated Erik Spiekermann put me in contact with the font production department at FontShop International and for about three years I freelanced for them. I learned a lot from Inka Menne, Christoph Koeberlin and Jens Kutilek.
A few years ago I also took some punch-cutting lessons with Nelly Gable. It was a unique experience I’ll remember the rest of my life.
“I believe that if a typeface family works well in a newspaper, it will work well on many other platforms because a newspaper is a complex information system, and if your design has met its demands, it will be able to perform satisfactorily on other platforms.”
– Ramiro Espinoza
Do you still sketch–draw on paper?
Ramiro Espinoza I don’t follow the same process for every design. Depending on the nature of the project and the time available, I sketch on paper, usually with some calligraphic exploration using reeds of varying widths.
Do you have words of wisdom for young practitioners?
Ramiro Espinoza Yes, never assume that you understand a distribution contract without having the assistance of an intellectual property lawyer. Do not trust a font company because your friends or colleagues work for it: your contract must be checked by an IP lawyer.
Thank you very much Ramiro!
– Interview by Laimė Lukošiūnaitė
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