Interview with Maria Doreuli

An interview with Maria Doreuli from Contrast Foundry conducted over email post-workshop in June 2021.

Chris and James: Does your multilingual background influence your type design and production? If so, how does it impact your process?

Maria: Designing a typeface for several scripts, considering their peculiarities influences my design process a lot. Mostly—it makes me work more, design tons of glyphs and it makes releasing a typeface take ages! No kidding ;) Actually even learning about the different languages within the Latin script will change the way you start a project. Latin and Cyrillic are parts of the same system to me. Yet designing Cyrillic will require more building blocks, which ideally you need to incorporate in your design space from the very start. Only then you will be able to make them work coherently with each other.

C + J: How does hand drawing (or drawing with a stylus) incorporate into your design process?

M: Sketching for me is a way of researching, thinking of what I am going to do. It takes away a layer of perfectionism that digital tools bring and let me focus on the concept first and do it fast.

Every tool has its own limitations. When drawing by hand we have to deal with the material and the pen and the fight with the imperfections of our shaky hands. When working digitally it is very easy to follow what the software allows us to do—place the points on the curve correctly, keep things symmetrical and mathematically equal. But we do not necessarily need that!

That is why I think that combining different techniques, tools, and materials is important. It adds a different angle to the project, makes it richer and often results in unexpected.

C + J: Are there any technical processes or formal tips you'd recommend for students interested in getting started (or continuing) with type design?

M: One of my teachers, Alexander Tarbeev, says that a type designer is a person who can't not draw typefaces. This is a very accurate description of the profession. So I'd say—just continue drawing type, pushing your projects further! You will learn a lot by continuously working on a typeface and looking at the typefaces designed nowadays or in the past. Many things in type design are self driven, so if you enjoy the process and keep drawing letters even without having a commission and a deadline—then you have all means to become great at it :)