Process Typeface

Back in 2002, I dove headfirst into the wild world of digital type design with a crazy dream – turning one into a full-fledged font. I was totally into the DIY vibe that rocked font foundries in the early ’90s, always on the lookout for fresh and captivating letter shapes. I got lucky when my photography background collided with my font quest. Pure serendipity led me to discover that the edge markings on film hid bitmap forms that looked a lot like Roman letter shapes. I got hooked on this find, spent hours dissecting these shapes, and came up with a grid system and vector production “rules” to cook up an alphabet inspired by these primal analog forms. It wasn’t a walk in the park – some letters were more legible than others. But hey, I wasn’t aiming for a font you’d use for body copy in a novel. Nope, this one was meant for captions, highlighted text, or playing around with funky typographic compositions.

After crafting a full character set, I sent it off to the T-26 Digital Type Foundry in Chicago. To my surprise and delight, they accepted it! And that’s how the Process font came to be. The name gives a nod to the analog film era, where film rolls underwent chemical “processing” to reveal the negatives. It’s also a subtle nod to my journey of turning letter shapes into a functional font, ready to rock in diverse graphic design projects for generations to come. Fast forward a bunch of years, and bam! Chicago Graphic Design Club decides to use Process as their masthead in their “Faculty” publication. This gives the font a second lease on life, finding a new crowd that might dig its vibe. 

Born from a true spirit of experimentation, fueled by an offbeat well of inspiration, tipping its hat to the good ol’ days, and embracing forward-thinking aesthetics – Process is a seriously unique batch of letters in the modern bitmap typeface game. Its journey reflects how folks keep stumbling upon it and finding cool ways to use it, making its creator (that’s me) super proud.