Typeface Redesign for Sinaloa

From Frank Zappa's letterhead to a British video game console — now finally authorised

Sinaloa is a revival of Rosmarie Tissi's experimental 1972 alphabet, originally released through Letraset's Letragraphica dry-transfer collection in 1974. After unauthorised digital versions proliferated from the 1990s without Tissi's involvement, she reclaimed her rights from Monotype and terminated existing distribution in 2020. Working with type designer Céline Odermatt, Tissi expanded the original roughly fifty-character set to over 200 characters for the authorised 2024 Lineto release. Font engineering and mastering was handled by Alphabet, Berlin.

Set in LL Sinaloa

Insights

The original alphabet comprised roughly fifty characters; Odermatt and Tissi expanded it to over two hundred for the digital release.
Tissi and Odermatt remodelled diacritics and punctuation originally produced by Letraset, and applied optical adjustments to the parallel-line stripes.
The release includes a Limited Edition of dry-transfer lettering sheets — one per typeface — each paired with a download code for the digital font.
Font engineering and mastering was performed by Alphabet, Berlin.

Date: Fri, Nov 13

Tags: Parallel Lines, Dry-transfer Lettering, Stencil Lettering

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