From research papers to food menus, on the front of buildings and the side of jeepneys, fonts make up an integral part of day-to-day life. Some of these fonts were made by hand, while others were already existing and easily printed.

Located at the 12/F Cinema of Benilde’s School of Design and Arts (SDA) Campus, Aaron Amar started the Filipino-inspired Typefaces talk from his journey as a creative; making typefaces on the pixel-based font creation website, FontStruct, after he was asked by his church to find a font to use other than Helvetica. Through series of searching to produce exactly what he was looking for, Amar decided to try his hand at creating the font himself.

The  Multimedia Arts alumnus at STI College Muñoz-EDSA has enjoyed creating fonts in the past such as Corte, Unbranded, and Nokia 6000.

As a stillman and set photographer for GMA network by day, Amar has garnered acclaims after sharing one of his fonts on Facebook—Quiapo Free—last April 10, 2018. For over 3,000 shares and hundreds of comments, the post spread like wildfire for its easily recognizable font used by jeepneys to show their routes and destinations.

It was then followed by Cubao Free, the font was inspired by the signs on the UV Express; with its iconic broad strokes and neon green and pink coloring.

Some of his recent creations also include: Altta Kratos, Dangwa, and Furgatorio. Another is a Baybayin font, Malibata, highlighting his passion for Philippine heritage and culture.

As of the moment, Amar pursues typeface-creation as a personal project, which he will later intertwine with his passion for ancient Filipino scripts.

To see more of Amar’s work, check out his Behance page at https://www.behance.net/aaronamar/.

Photos by Niña Cudal