Referential Mono Typeface

Referential Mono is built on a 5x5 grid, inspired by early computing and Islamic History. As a developer and Muslim, this project was an opportunity to combine many aspects of my identity in one.

Special thanks to: Simon Johnston, Lavinia Lascaris, Noah Cousineau, with additional feedback from Milka Broukhim, Greg Lindy of Lux Typo, and Wael Morcos.

HMCT graciously featured the typeface in their December 2023 holiday greeting email newsletter.

Ongoing work includes: an Arabic version, motion design, and generative typography.

Referential Mono was one of five typeface selected for HMCT’s 2023 holiday greetings email and social media posts

Final classroom critique with Simon Johnston and Lavinia Lascaris

I began designing the Arabic character set which has a different set of complexities. In this first draft I remained rigid to the same grid as the Latin character set (7x7 without letter-spacing since Arabic is a connected script). In doing so, I found some forms do not reduce down as nicely as I would like. The next revision I will try is on a 14x14 grid, subdividing the current grid in half.