GoKawiilThe Story of Shantell Sans
Shantell Sans mixes variable axes for Weight, Italic, Informality, and Bounce to deliver a wide array of font styles, from friendly, readable, everyday typographic workhorses to striking, high-energy, experimental styles meant especially for animation.
This is the story behind its inspiration and creation.
Why make a new font?
Shantell Martin, Artist
Shantell Martin, Photo credit Michelle Mosqueda
One of my first relationships with words was back in elementary school. We did spelling tests every week. Since I never passed them, I had to sit in detention.
Despite being scared of the spelling tests, I loved words. I wrote and drew a lot. I knew that words helped me to express my feelings and feel better. Since I was writing for myself, I didn’t have to care about spelling.
When I was 20 or 21, I found out that I was dyslexic. When I started my art degree at Central Saint Martins in London, I was in an environment where it felt like the majority of people were dyslexic. I was instantly part of a cool group of creative people. However, I was disappointed about the amount of teachers who had never spotted my reading challenges. Instead of supporting me to learn to read and write, they punished me.
Creating my own font was a way to empower people to read and write, despite their relationship to words. What if I take my words, or my handwriting or the letters that I’ve created, and make a font that is fun and playful, but also professional and usable? I wanted to make a font that feels accessible and open to remind people, including myself, that words are drawings and that words can exist on our own terms.
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