Type Design for Laima Font Family
Stencil logic built from calligraphic brush strokes, not machinery
Laima is a calligraphic stencil typeface designed by Bogidar Mascareñas and published by TypeTogether in 2019. It departs from industrial or militarised stencil conventions by deriving interrupted strokes from calligraphic brush junctures, producing the illusion of twisted, disconnected overlaps. The family originated as a Type and Media Master's project at KABK, The Hague, and spans five weights in roman and italic. Historical inspiration came from Francisco Palomares's 1776 engraving book 'Arte Nueva de Escribir'.
Set in Laima
Insights
- Stroke junctures in calligraphic letterforms serve as the structural basis for stencil interruptions, replacing the mechanical gap convention.
- Some characters required entirely new shapes to preserve diacritic clarity within the stencil constraint.
- OpenType logic automatically suppresses swash capitals when more than two appear consecutively in the italic styles.
- The family supports hundreds of Latin-based languages, with two numeral styles, stylistic alternates, and terminal forms built into the glyph set.
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