I’ve been asked many times about process of designing typeface (Di Mare script as well). So I decided to tell a little about it.
An idea of this typeface came to my mind when I was in Rome. It was an amazing journey. I visited museums, walked around the city squinting in the sun, ate delicious italian food, admired ancient architecture. I was especially happy because those were the days when I decided to change my life. And one of the main steps was founding my own typefoundry. So when I came back I already had the idea of my first own project.
I saw many handmade restaurant signboards in Rome. And this one was my favourite. It’s a sign of seafood restaurant near the Vatican. There was delicious food and very friendly Russian waitress who's been working there for a lot of years. And I loved their letters :) So I was very inspiried and I decided to create a typeface based on this signboard.
I started with handmade sketches. My letters were different but I didn’t want to copy the reference. I wanted to create my own script and to express the joyful atmosphere of traveling and happiness.
Messy sketches were done and I started thinking about styles and how they would work together.
But it was just a lettering. So it was a time to continue work in Illustrator and Robofont. And I had to think about connections from the very beginning.
Lowercases were done and I began to work on uppercases and numerals.
So I had all the main glyphs. It was time to work on alternates and ligatures. I decided to draw alternates and ligatures everywhere where it was necessary because I wanted this script to look harmonious. So I created over 600 contextual alternates and ligatures. I built them into the “Liga” feature because it is turned on by default.
Fragment of feature code:
Regular was done and I began working on other styles: Light and Shadow. They also need hundreds of altrnates and ligatures.
And Small Capitals: Regular, Ligth and Shadow.
Finally I cheked all styles working together in all combinations.
