Primitiv Text

A font family inspired by fundamental waveforms of synthesized sound.

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Introductory slide showing the name of a new Type Family: Primitiv Text. Background of is of a nameless synthesizer and the font name is on a white background.
Font weights are displayed in order from backslant, regular, medium, semibold and bold in white text on a black background with a synthesizer and oscilloscope in view
3 column view of primary styles: regular, backslant, and bold in white text on a black background: listing synth related words
2 column view of type features: weight on the left, slant on the right
Full glyph set view in regular weight. Each glyph is in its own box with the unicode below. Boxes and text is in yellow on a black background.
Collection of a single paragraph in every style for Primitv text in black text on a light gray background. Paragraph is about subtractive synthesis.
Full glyph set in each primary style: regular, backslant, and bold in black text on a light gray background.
Collection of ephemeral pieces highlighting Primitiv Text in different styles: showing a club flyer, a one sheet of technical writing, and 2 graphics on sound with a label underneath. All sitting on top of a textured black and white background.
Collection of ephemeral pieces highlighting Primitiv Text in different styles: showing a club flyer, a one sheet of technical writing, and 2 graphics on sound with a label underneath. All sitting on top of a textured black and white background.
A final shot of Primitiv Text front and center, on a textured and colorful vhs background, pulled from my upcoming video.
select scans of a wire-o bound process book for Primitiv Text, showing different spreads in gif form

About the Project

Textured synthesized sound of pioneering electronic music, oscillated waveforms changing shape, text-rich technical synthesizer manuals—these are the foundational sources of inspiration for Primitiv Text, a new type family created across Term 2 and Term 3 of Type West through the Letterform Archive.

It’s ambitious to turn abstract inspiration rooted from sound into type, but how else does one start an idea for a typeface, especially one with multiple styles? Big and abstract is okay. However, if we focus on foundations and add a few additional objectives to learn from, that makes some of the design decisions easier. For Primitiv Text, the first decision is to create an original text typeface, not based on a revival, and the second is to construct a variable font with interpolated instances.

Finding inspiration through the lens of early electronic music and its technology and tools became a helpful way to reference and develop the concept that started to form Primitiv Text. Oscilloscopes, oscillators, waveform shapes (especially triangle, sawtooth, and square), synthesizers and their labels and manuals, all came to mind while offering visual guidance outside of traditional design and typographic sources. Together, these formed a helpful starting point to sketch abstract ideas around.

About the Type

Primitiv Text is a geometric sans serif text typeface with a comfortably noisy texture and primitive forms. It is heavily inspired by fundamental waveform shapes of synthesized sound—triangle, sawtooth, and square waves—visualized through an oscilloscope. Additionally, it pulls inspiration from dense technical synthesizer manuals that describe said machines and how to use them. Primitiv Text is constructed with vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines to create curves without curves, and includes four weights and a backslant to create a textured reading experience.

This type family is still in a work in progress, but if you’re interested in using this for a project, or curious to learn more, feel free to reach out!

Thanks

Primitiv Text was created with the excellent guidance and support of the Type West Online instructors and teaching assistants.

Lead Instructor: Sahar Afshar
Co-Instructors: Fer Cozzi and Romina Hernández
TAs: Nora Warschewski and Allie Schmitz