I Don’t Design Letters — I Build Visual Worlds

Behind every successful digital typeface: art, technology, and cultural vision

By Sultan Maqtari

When people ask what I do, I used to say: “I design fonts.”

Then I realized that wasn’t true.

I don’t just draw letters.

I build visual worlds.

A typeface is not a collection of shapes.

It’s a living system — where art meets code, tradition dances with innovation, and culture speaks through curves.

Every font I create starts with a question:

What story does this letter carry?

Is it the echo of Arabic thuluth flowing through a screen in Tokyo?

The resilience of a Devanagari script adapting to a smartphone in Mumbai?

Or a Latin serif reimagined with the soul of woodblock printing?

Designing type today means mastering three realms:

Art - honoring centuries of calligraphy, rhythm, and beauty.

Technology - coding OpenType features, crafting vector paths, building variable fonts that breathe.

Functionality — ensuring clarity on every device, for every reader, in every language.

And now? Type is alive. 

With variable fonts, one file can stretch, condense, and morph.

With color fonts, letters glow, shade, and illustrate.

With dynamic design, they respond to time, motion, context — becoming part of interactive experiences.

We’re no longer just typographers.

We’re visual storytellers, cultural guardians, digital artisans.

Every glyph is a bridge — between past and future, local and global, hand and machine.

So no, I don’t just design letters.

I build worlds where meaning lives, breathes, and evolves —

one character at a time.

In the age of digital transformation, type design is no longer just about drawing letters with pen and paper. It has evolved into a complex visual system — one that blends historical aesthetics, cutting-edge digital tools, and functional demands across diverse media environments.

Today, a typeface is more than a tool for conveying meaning. It’s an independent visual entity, carrying cultural identity and operating in multidimensional digital spaces. Designing a font isn’t merely sketching characters — it’s constructing a complete visual ecosystem rooted in three core pillars: art and creativity, technical precision, and functionality (usability & real-world application).

These elements work together to create fonts that transcend language, communicating culture, emotion, and purpose with clarity and beauty.

1. Art & Creativity: Reimagining the Past for the Future

Typography is one of humanity’s most enduring art forms. Across centuries and continents, scripts have served as unique expressions of cultural spirit and aesthetic values.

From Japanese calligraphy to Arabic thuluth, from Devanagari to Latin serifs, each writing system carries the memory of its time and place — shaped by history, religion, geography, and identity. A designer doesn’t start from nothing; they engage in a deep dialogue with tradition, extracting principles of balance, rhythm, and flow that have guided letterforms for generations.

True creativity lies not in rejecting heritage, but in reinterpreting it dynamically. Modern typefaces aren’t mere copies of old styles — they’re thoughtful reinventions, adapted to contemporary needs. In this role, the designer becomes a visual translator, using letters to carry cultural narratives into the present.

And it’s not just about individual shapes. Great typography considers how words feel when set together — how lines breathe, how rhythm flows. A single character is never isolated; it’s part of a larger visual fabric. This is what elevates type from utility to art.

2. Technology & Precision: The Digital Backbone

If art is the soul of type, then technology is its body.

In today’s world, hand-drawn letters must become precise digital objects — scalable without quality loss, compatible across devices, and ready for global use. This begins with vector drawing in software like Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer, where every curve and anchor point is meticulously placed.

But the real magic happens in specialized font editors like Glyphs, FontForge, or FontCreator. These tools transform sketches into fully functional digital fonts, embedding data on spacing, kerning, and character relationships.

Modern fonts also rely on OpenType features — intelligent behaviours that make text smarter:

Stylistic Alternates: Alternate glyphs for richer visual variety.

Contextual Alternates: Characters that change shape based on position.

Ligatures: Combined forms that improve legibility and elegance.

Multilingual Support: Handling complex scripts (right-to-left, vertical, diacritics) across languages like Arabic, Thai, or Chinese.

Without these technical foundations, even the most beautiful design fails in practice. A font must work — flawlessly — wherever it’s used.

3. Innovation & Motion: The Future of Type Is Alive

We’re witnessing a radical shift in digital typography — toward flexibility, color, and interactivity.

Enter Variable Fonts: a single file that can smoothly adjust weight, width, slant, or optical size. No more separate files for "light," "bold," or "condensed." Just one adaptive font, reducing load times and expanding creative control.

Then there are Color Fonts, which embed full-color graphics, gradients, and textures directly into the font file. Imagine emojis, logos, or illustrated letters that behave like regular text — perfect for branding, apps, and expressive design.

Beyond that, designers are exploring dynamic type — fonts that respond to context. What if a letter changes shape based on time of day, location, user input, or motion? With advancements in web tech and augmented reality, type is becoming alive, evolving from static symbols into responsive, interactive experiences.

The future of typography isn’t fixed — it’s fluid, smart, and deeply integrated into our digital lives.

4. Functionality: Design That Works in the Real World

A beautiful font isn’t successful unless it’s usable.

Great type balances aesthetics with practicality. Three key principles define this:

Legibility vs. Readability

Legibility = Can you tell “b” from “d”?

Readability = Can you read a paragraph comfortably?

Factors like x-height, counter sizes, kerning, line spacing, and stroke contrast all affect how easily people consume text — especially on small screens or in low-light conditions.

Consistency & Identity

Every character must follow shared design rules: stroke weight, curvature, terminals, angles. Inconsistencies break visual harmony. Strong consistency builds a clear, recognizable typographic voice.

Versatility & Accessibility

Modern fonts need:

Multiple weights (light, bold, black…)

Italics and alternate styles

Support for multiple formats (OTF, TTF, WOFF)

Multilingual coverage (e.g., bilingual Arabic-Latin fonts)

They should also be accessible — readable for users with visual impairments, compatible with screen readers, and designed with inclusive principles in mind.

5. Typography as Cultural Stewardship

Beyond form and function, type design is an act of cultural preservation.

Every font carries DNA from its linguistic roots. When we digitize traditional scripts — whether Naskh, Hangul, or Devanagari — we’re not just modernizing them. We’re ensuring they thrive in digital spaces dominated by Western-centric design.

Designers around the world — from Tokyo to Dakar, from Mexico City to Aden — are reviving endangered scripts, breathing new life into forgotten styles, and asserting cultural presence through type.

In doing so, they become guardians of heritage, blending respect for tradition with fearless innovation. The typeface becomes a bridge — between past and future, local and global, craft and code.

Conclusion: Building Living Systems, One Glyph at a Time

Digital type design is not about drawing letters.

It’s about building living visual systems — intricate networks of art, engineering, and human-centered thinking. Success isn’t measured only by beauty, but by performance, adaptability, and cultural resonance.

As technology accelerates, type designers face a profound challenge: honor the authenticity of their roots while embracing the possibilities of the digital frontier.

And so, the future of type doesn’t belong only to calligraphers of old. It belongs to digital artisans worldwide — those who see beyond the letter, and instead, build entire worlds, pixel by pixel, curve by curve.

Because in the end, every font is more than text.

It’s a story.
A culture.
A living vision.

Written by Sultan Maqtari
Digital Font Designer
November 9, 2025