Since I’ve been very fascinated and inspired by British Rapper Simbi Ajikawo alias Little Simz, she became the main influence for my new font. Little Simz is a powerful, self-confident young woman who skillfully manages to make herself heard and respected in a world dominated by men. Her music is experimental, brave and influenced by a variety of different music genres such as Jazz, Soul, Hip Hop, Rap and Grime. Simz’ third album “Grey Area” almost entirely deals with socio-critical and political issues. 

I wanted to construct a very expressive, experimental typeface that represents something new and unusual. Since I draw a lot and one of my favourite techniques is one-line drawing, I tried this method on some letters. The result was an exciting new design which I touched up by hatching or blackening the gaps. I liked the style so much that I established it as another important stylistic feature for my font. Yet, I couldn’t just start translating the alphabet spontaneously into drawings. First I had to create a basic typography which I could use as template for my further drawings. That’s how the font “Black Area” was created. 

While listening to Little Simz‘ Album  “Grey Area”, I translated the music onto paper – so the lines were directly influenced by her music. The outcome was the “White Area”-typeface, each letter consisting of a single line. In order to give the typography its final face, I blackened individual spaces that were created, hatched or left open. That’s how my main font “Gray Area” came onto paper. Thanks to the grey value of the font, I found the album title very appropriate and named my font after the source of inspiration. Due to the previously mentioned different grey values of each font, the typography can be used in a variety of ways or combined with each other.