Limerick, alongside Covenant, was one of the first two typefaces to make it to the Proof of Words type catalogue. Limerick is a pixel font deriving from the ABCs cross-stitch charts. This small article aims to explain Limerick’s design process and its key features.

When I was younger, my mother taught me how to knit, do needlepoint, and cross-stitch. That’s when I discovered the patterns these crafts are based on, particularly cross-stitch. I wasn’t interested in the embroidery patterns as much as I was in their printed models. At the end of craft magazines or in ladies’ handwork books, you’ll find pages and pages of models with patterns, symbols, and ornaments.

At first, these were detachable pages, printed in black and white, on cheap paper, covered with grids filled with small symbols indicating colours because it was too pricey to print them directly coloured.

Nowadays, these pages are printed in colour, but they kept their little symbols (maybe for the visually impaired?). Since this discovery, I’ve been fascinated with patterns, particularly matrice derived ones. All these little symbols, ordered in their boxes, are mesmerising and hypnotic.

The Limerick typeface embodies my passion for cross-stitch and also echoes these patterns. In the world of cross-stitch, there are major themes for patterns, one of them being alphabets. You embroider the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, either alone or surrounded by little scenes or ornaments. Therefore, there are plenty of different models for these alphabets, some more ornate or elaborate than others.

Without much difficulty, thanks to the canvas on which cross-stitch is practised, you can draw a parallel between cross-stitch and screen pixels. The canvas provides the grid, which we fill with stitches, like pixel art in the age of computers. This is how we naturally arrive at the concept of the Pixel Font.

I first started with extensive research of alphabet patterns for this typeface. I browsed through old magazines, looked at ladies’ handworkbooks, and scrolled through Pinterest. Before deciding on the type of model I wanted to create typographically, I had to consider the definition I wanted to achieve. I didn’t want the Pixel Font aspect to be too prominent, so I didn’t go for overly simple models. I wanted a display typeface that was quite exuberant, and which, I could allow myself to choose a slightly more complex and decorated model. I couldn’t go to the opposite extreme either and choose a too-detailed model because we would have lost the readability I wanted to maintain.

Once I found the right model according to these criteria and my own taste, I started working on the drawing. Given the complexity of the model, and the obvious display purposes of this typeface, I quickly decided to limit the set only to caps. The structure of capital letters being simpler than that of lowercase, this allowed me to choose a more ornamental model.

The process wasn’t simply about copying the model to digitise it but rather about translating it typographically. The people who imagined and produced these alphabet models weren’t type designers, and this becomes quite apparent quickly. Therefore, I wanted to bring my typographic eye to this universe that wasn’t ”typographically correct”. The real challenge here was to turn the model into a usable typeface. Alphabets models being mostly embroidered as is, they could not care about coherence or legibility.

Initially, I focused on drawing the caps. I reproduced, then corrected and adapted the model letter by letter with pixels on the grid I had defined. It was exciting to have to rethink and question each letter and each pixel, to ask myself which parts I could remove without losing the soul of the model and what solutions I could provide to make it more coherent, stable, and usable. To make it more typographic, ultimately.

Secondly, there was the more usual type design work to create non existing related glyphs. Alphabet models are designed from A to Z but don’t include diacritics, punctuation, or numbers. So, I had to complete the glyphset to make this typeface usable.

Based on what I had drawn and interpreted for the capitals, I could transpose this to the structure of figures, which are pretty similar. Then, I had to find solutions to create punctuation and diacritics without ornamenting too much. In order to allow the signs to be recognised without becoming too simple to stand out. It was about finding the right balance.

Finally, to finish the glyphset, I wanted to add ornaments and icons. Very present in cross-stitch patterns, this also echoed typographic vignettes, ornaments and borders. So, I returned to my research to find vignette patterns and invented some of my own. This would allow the user to create graphic compositions.

Alongside the progression of the glyphset, with a type designer mindset, I started to think about the family. Logically, one builds a family by adding weights. However here, given the structure of the design, this didn’t make sense to me. I could have thickened the stems and widened the characters, but the graphic result didn’t suit me and I didn’t pursue this direction. I then considered the question of thickening not the letters but the pixels themselves.

I could have chosen to do this, it created unexpected and curious forms, but I didn’t pursue this path either because it gave me another idea.

I could modify the pixels. Not just their weight but their shape. This direction would echo the patterns on the model grids. A grid, filled with changing patterns.

Sometime before, while looking for Pixel Fonts references, I discovered the Handjet typeface from Rosetta. It’s a Variable Pixel Font where pixels change shape, patterns. So, I took up this principle of variable pixels, but with different forms.

Therefore, I researched shapes between which I could interpolate to create the Variable. The shapes couldn’t be too complex because they were themselves used in fussy letter structures.

Initially, I came up with 10 pixel shapes. However, I had to face an unsolvable technical problem. My files were too heavy. (11 lettre décomposée) Each pixel being composed of many points and each glyph composed of many pixels; it was too much. So, I had to simplify my pixels and give up the last two forms, fractioned circle and square repetitions. This considerably lightened the file, which would now export correctly.

Thus, I am happy to present to you the Limerick family, which comprises 8 different pixel shapes and a Variable Font containing them all. The typeface was released in 2023, at the launch of Proof of Words, and I spent about 1 year working on it. I really hope to see it used for projects that aren’t necessarily cross-stitch related. And, of course, now I’ll have to find some time to embroider it in a composition with the vignettes!