Sixten

Sixten is a versatile typeface inspired by the intuitive letter shapes of a four-year old child. The typeface questions writing rules, considering that they limit our natural instincts for creating letters at a young age.The project challenges our preconceptions of right and wrong when shaping the alphabet. There were interesting findings while designing, like the connection between the Phoenician and Early Greek alphabet. Sixten is a variable font and includes conventional and rebellious alternates. Forms of a child’s early handwriting have been shaped into a typeface without being childish.

Our goal was to shape the instinctive letters of a child into typographic patterns and create a fun typeface with letterforms beyond the obvious. Our inspirational source was writing letters backwards which made us curious on why and why not? So mirrored letters are a part of Sixten, we also brought in ‘flying small caps’, which align with the uppercase height instead the baseline and created what we call ‘flag caps’ that have one stem touching the baseline. The type family also changes features from Narrow to Wide, affecting not only the width but also the skeleton of the letters

For more information about the project please visit NM type.

→ Essay giving more contect to the project
→ Article on Creative Boom