Fonts in Motion typography project Mexico, Digi Mart USA News (Mexico): Letters are present from the moment the day begins. They appear on phones, product packaging, street signs and in the messages we send.
We use them to read, write and recognize places, but we do not always stop to observe their forms.
Some are thin and elongated. Others have pronounced curves, straight edges or strokes that recall handwriting.
Each one reflects decisions made by people who spend time drawing, testing and adjusting their shapes so they can communicate.
Fonts in Motion is a project by unFormat that aims to bring audiences closer to the work behind letters. For its first edition, it brought together more than 70 artists and type designers linked to Mexico and explored their proposals through animation, programming, sound and interaction.
A typeface can be part of our routine without our knowing its name or who designed it. We may find it on the cover of a book, on the menu of our favorite place or on a sign that helps us get home.
Although its function seems simple, behind it lies a design process.
The thickness of a stroke, the height of a letter and the space separating one letter from another are among the decisions that shape its appearance. When reading, we do not always think about these details, but they are there, giving form to the words that accompany us.
Fonts in Motion proposes pausing to consider that work and looking at typography through its visual possibilities. The project starts from curiosity about finding new formats to show letters and the people who create them, even outside spaces specialized in design.
To develop its first edition, unFormat invited more than 70 type artists and designers linked to Mexico. The studio produced animated videos to showcase their work, bringing together different approaches to letters in a single proposal.
Participants include Cecilia del Castillo, Cristóbal Henestrosa, Gabriel Martínez Meave, Sandra García, Said Dokins and Miguel Reyes, along with other creators who are part of the community gathered by FM. Their names accompany a project that focuses on the people behind the forms we read.
The selection also invites us to think of typography as a shared practice. Although each creator develops their own work, bringing their proposals together opens a space to observe the variety of forms and explorations that coexist around letter design.
Beyond gathering diverse creators, Fonts in Motion explores what happens when typography meets other disciplines. To do so, the project incorporates animation, programming, interaction and sound as part of its language.
unFormat produced animated typographic specimens. A specimen is a sample that allows observation of a typeface’s characteristics, such as the shapes of its letters and how they relate to one another.
By incorporating movement, these samples present designs in a format different from a static page.
The proposal also featured an interactive letter matrix developed by Sampler Nena and a catalog interface with parametric and self-generative programming by Monodata. Music from the netlabel Façade Electronics accompanied the set, adding a sound dimension to the project.
Fonts in Motion was created by unFormat, a Latin American creative studio based in Mexico that works across visual communication, cultural management and outreach. Its practice includes research, publications, exhibitions, conferences and projects dedicated to sharing knowledge.
Leading the studio are Natalia Gómez González, an artist and art director, and Miguel Escamilla, a cultural manager, researcher and type designer. The team recognizes typography as a cultural tool and seeks to explore ways it can reach more people.
That intention runs through FM. The project takes something we live with every day and places it in the foreground.
In doing so, it invites us to observe its details and recognize that behind each form are decisions, processes and people.
Fonts in Motion was first presented at the tenth edition of the Abierto de Diseño CDMX at Plaza Legorreta at CENART. To display the content, unFormat built a triangular pavilion with three LED screens measuring six by three meters.
The installation brought letters to a different scale and gave them a place within a shared space. Although that presentation was temporary, the interest that gave rise to the project remains relevant to everyone: looking more closely at the forms we use to communicate.
After reading this article, letters will continue to appear before us. They will be in the next notification, in the book we left halfway through or on the sign of a business we have passed so many times that we know it by heart.
Perhaps we do not need to know the name of every typeface to enjoy it. Sometimes it is enough to pause for a moment, look at its forms and remember that someone imagined and worked to make them exist today.
Letters help us tell stories. Fonts in Motion also invites us to look at the stories behind them.
