32: a typeface as our mount everest

What would it look like to create a font family that trends upwards? With my friend Sage, we investigated how the text itself can act as building blocks, that beyond the content, the form itself was creating a structure.

I designed a font family that was meant to ascend. Each letter would climb a little bit more than the last, like a staircase or a mountain. Sage brought the typeface to life digitally, bringing in variable font weight and ascent amount. This means the typeface can range between "0 ascent" to "100 ascent", where 0 is blocky text meant to be displayed horizontally, and 100 ascent has an incline of around 30 degrees.

The limitations of how type is displayed and rendered on the web makes it hard for it to both ascend properly and act as a font on a website, but with print design, there is more flexibility to arrange the letters closer to how it's meant to function.

In print design, text is already so commonly used as design elements, as frames or walls, enlarging and distorting the text to draw attention to something or lead the viewer somewhere. What does it mean to design a typeface in which its primary function is to be the design element, as a rising tide or a summit or even something greater?

My journey in documenting projects, ideas, collaborations, creative sketches, and more can be found at a flower is not a flower.