Aria

I truly fell in love at first sight with the lowercase ‘a’ of Aria, capricious and full of happiness, and later with every letter of the roman weight.

According to its designer Rui Abreu, an inscription in a 19th century painting was the main source of inspiration for this display face. One might sense that inspiration in the alternate ‘A’ and ‘H’ with their decorative crossbar. But this epigraphic influence was shrewdly combined with a touch of energetic English calligraphy, reaching a perfect balance between exuberance, charm, and artisanal quality. The italic weight is even more flourishing and lively, especially in the set of ligatures. It is also quite legible at medium text sizes – maybe it would be interesting to develop a text version?

Laura Meseguer lives in Barcelona, where she works on type design and lettering. A graduate of the Type and Media masters program at KABK, she is also the author of TypoMag, coauthor of Como crear tipografías, and a member of the Type-Ø-Tones foundry, which publishes her own typefaces, such as Typographica favorites Rumba, Magasin and Multi.