Quixatipo: uma fonte digital inspirada em letreiros populares quixadaenses

Abstract

Typography is present in everyday life, being an essential element in design and communication, often imperceptibly. Vernacular typography, in particular, reflects the identity and creativity of a community, being an authentic expression of local culture, often produced outside formal design. This work proposes to value the activity of letter painters in the city of Quixadá, Ceará, using their popular signs as inspiration for the development of a digital typeface. The research aimed to develop a digital font inspired by these signs, and specifically, to register and map popular letterings, classify them to define cohesive references, and test the typeface through graphic applications. For this, an exploratory field research was carried out in Quixadá, collecting 44 images of signs. Moreira's (2016) methodology was applied, divided into phases of reference selection, analysis, and use, and transposition from analog to digital. The "QuixaTipo" font was developed from a specific sign, with the creation of the remaining characters based on Debra Adams' Character Derivation Grid. Vectorization was done in Adobe Illustrator and final adjustments in FontForge, resulting in a font with 96 characters (26 uppercase, 28 diacritical marks, 10 numerals, and 32 signs and symbols) in OpenType format. The conclusion highlights the importance of valuing regional typography as part of visual culture and the effectiveness of the methodology used. Despite the inherent challenges of familiarization with the software and the complexity in adapting vernacular forms to the digital environment, the font development was successful, demonstrating the feasibility of transforming popular expressions into functional typographic tools.