Some of our collaborators had a research-led approach. Diatype is based on a phototypesetting typeface from the 1960s, so the Greek and Hebrew typefaces drew from the same era and technology. Similarly, Diatype Thai emerged from reference materials like Thai Letraset.
Diatype Cyrillic, Georgian, Armenian, and Devanagari, however, developed organically, drawing first from Latin design DNA. All these writing systems have their own histories and visual cultures, so design decisions often have different connotations even if they are aesthetically similar across systems. This required a lot of experimentation and testing of subtle changes. Lastly, Diatype Arabic was drawn entirely from scratch to stay true to the Arabic script, making clever visual references to the Latin counterpart.
Below each of our collaborators gives us a little insight into their specific approach...
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