By ELIZABETH RAYMOND
After living and working in the awe-inspiring beautiful city of Montserrat, Buenos Aires for years, Julieta Ulanovsky has used her graphic design background to save the nearly extinct typefaces in her beloved Argentinian city. Based on the beauty she found in the signs and posters of her native city of Montserrat. Her goal is to rescue the natural cultural beauty of this city through its typefaces —which will be seemingly lost in time, without preservation —under a free and open-sourced license. Using the Kickstarter platform, Ulanovsky quickly surpassed her goal of raising $5,000 and reached $9,800 by November 19th. Additionally, she has earned her project over 350 backers. |
| A preview of the Montserrat Regular |
The Montserrat Typeface is drawn based on the unique and timeless urban characters of the city. The individual letters, numbers and symbols are varied in length, width and height proportions, while staying true to their basic inspiration. And, as opposed to the other revivals out there of this nature, hers have the same “work, dedication, care, color, contrast, light and life, day and night” as the originals that make the city such a treasure.
Ulanovsky eventually intends to make a typeface family that has up to nine styles (formally based in the Serif Sanns family), but has started with the two most important styles. Montserrat Regular (see sample featured right) will be in keeping with the Roman typeface’s width and height requirements – thus making it useful for more formal contexts. Montserrat Regular Alternate Caps, (see sample below) will follow the same basic dimensions, but with the alternating caps style taken directly from the city of Buenos Aires – giving it a more aesthetically accurate visual. The project exceeded its planned donations, which means Ulanovsky will plan to expand to incorporate other Extended Latin Characters.
Have a watch at her pledge video (featured above) and some sample Montserrat Typefaces (laid out below). To learn more about her Kickstarter project, go HERE.
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| Montserrat Hairline Weight Preview |
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| Montserrat Bold |
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| A very old tea room called La Puerto Rico in Montserrat. Image by Julietta Ulanovsky. |
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| A very old tea room called La Puerto Rico in Montserrat. Image by Julietta Ulanovsky. |
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| A very old tea room called La Puerto Rico in Montserrat. Image by Julietta Ulanovsky. |
