Tyto (Tskili)

Overview

Dual language typeface and type specimen for a custom serif typeface supporting Western European languages and Cherokee syllabary.

Tyto sets itself apart as both a typeface with desirable features for use in print and web design and as a vehicle for storytelling.

Final specimen was exhibited in Ronald D. Silverman Gallery.

Concept & Challenge

The Audience

How do I sell a product to Graphic Designers in North America who have a reverance for craftsmanship and design history?

The answer was found in the history of Native American peoples of the United States. I recalled Sequoyah's Cherokee Syllabary, an invention of craftsmanship and resistance that appeals to the core values of North American designers.

Design Approach

Type and written language are built upon the stories behind the letterforms themselves. Tyto's strength is that it uses its story and cultural references to create value beyond its formal characteristics.

Creating a System

Tyto needed a place to live, its own world that audiences could glimpse and gain an understanding of its symbolic power to develop a personal connection.

The world of Tyto is a world of joy as resistance, a world created and sustained by language and mythology. The specimen confronts the audience by revealing their place in the system.

Process

Research

The visual language of Tyto borrows from primary sources of visual culture, mythology, and economics from Southeastern Woodlands peoples of the United States.

Name to a Face

Tyto has two names for either language. Tyto is the Greek word for Owl, and Tskili is the Cherokee word for long eared owl, great horned owl, or witch.

Picking "Owl" as the name for a Native American typeface comes directly from source material. Indigenous folklore in the Americas contain the idea of owls as powerful messengers and wielders of supernatural power.

Creating the Letterforms

The story and design of Tyto had to feel grounded and familiar to my audience. Its main inspirations draw from Humanist and Transitional type design, eras whose designs feel familiar and timelessly elegant.

My experience as a calligrapher helped with reaching the appeal of familiarity and elegance. The system I was already familiar with for creating letterforms translated well to the digital tools.

Calligraphic sketches were imported to Glyphs Editor where I built the final design.

Final Alphabet and Syllabary

Concept Art and Illustration

Illustration Design Approach

Illustrations for the Tyto specimen are where the system's cross-cultural connections come to life.

Illustrations feature fantastical and natural subjects with my original designs inspired by Greco-Roman, Ancient Egyptian, and American indigenous mythologies.

Finished Illustrations

Illustrations for Tyto were drawn using grey markers on abstract backgrounds so the images can live and breathe in the specimen book and poster layouts.

Across the specimen the illustrations and writing tell the audience about how language, in pictorial and written form, work together to create joy as resistance.

Colors

Colors for Tyto had to use value, contrast, and luminosity to communicate with the audience and fit the source material. My choices ended up being PANTONE 2035 Uncoated and a CMYK process color I mixed and named "Erebus", or darkness.

PANTONE 2035 has a transformative quality. It changes between looking bright against a dark background and dark against a light background.

Erebus was mixed equal parts Cyan and Magenta with maximum black. This mixture created a night sky color that was not 100% pure black. A design choice I borrowed from painting.

Book Layout Design Approach

Specimen books are where the audience individually experience Tyto. They are where the joy as resistance concept is embedded in the medium itself.

Illustrations are moving on the page, unburdened by the grid. Typeset follows a grid but is affected by the moving images and the color combinations of the different spreads.

Illustrations and final letterforms from Tyto are fully showcased and explained in its specimen book. It features a written abstract, sample text of both languages, and artworks created with the typeface and accompanying editorial illustrations.

Poster Design Approach

Tyto poster specimens are where the audience collectively experiences the microcosm built by the Tyto specimen.

I made a connection between the audience's experience of Tyto and the experience of seeing the megalithic structures from Ancient Egypt, specifically the vastness of the cosmos.

Production

Tyto is showcased in the form of an 8 by 10 inch specimen book and three specimen posters, one 24 by 36 inches and two US Letter size. Books were hand bound and printed in color with a matte finish.

Showcase

As viewers enter the unfamilar world of Tyto, they are unexpectedly shown that they have a place within it. Understanding and experience of language is what connects people to the world around them.

Stickers

Happy Accident

Audience members, unexpectedly, developed unique connections to the individual illustrations.

Book Photography