Following his studies at MediaCollege in Amsterdam, Thom Niessink became a graphic designer with an inclination toward simplicity. Even his studio name, “thmbnl. graphic design” takes a minimalistic approach, stating that “It’s actually ‘thumbnail’, but I prefer to keep stuff simple.”
His work in the graphic design industry eventually led him to explore type design as a part-time endeavor. “After designing some logotypes I decided I really liked the simpleness of one of them, so I decided to turn it into a typeface,” Thom told us. That first typeface became the much-loved Oduda.
Thom feels that a wide range of usability, combined with unique character, is what makes a font truly amazing, and it’s something he certainly achieved throughout his Odudo family.
Inspired by various geometric predecessors, the Odudo family served as a typographic exploration for Thom. “To me, it was more of a training to understand some basics of type design with the help of a very strict geometric construction,” he explained.
The latest addition to Thom’s portfolio is Odudo Mono, a monospaced version of his original font, Odudo. Designed in collaboration with Alberto Romanos of Branding With Type, Odudo Mono shares the same width across all weights yet it maintains the familiar geometric appeal of the rest of the Odudo family.
Thom said that the best part of the project was working with Alberto. “He kicked off the design in the first place, based on my Odudo files,” Thom told us, adding that it was nice to see someone else try their hand with his typeface, yet maintain the feel of the original throughout the process.
The adaptation was not without its challenges. “I think the biggest challenge for us was to make a monospaced design out of the strict Odudo construction,” Thom observed. “Unfortunately, we had to drop the perfect round shapes on some of the characters.”
In the end, Odudo Mono keeps the warmth and approachability of its extended family, with a clean and modern feel that makes it appropriate for projects that need simplicity and clarity. Technical manuals and programming tools will greatly benefit from Odudo Mono’s high legibility and low contrast, yet it’s also well suited to web content, mobile applications, headlines, and editorials, while corporate communications will also take advantage of its flexibility.
Odudo Mono is available in Light, Regular, Semi Bold, and Bold, with multilingual support that extends to Basic Latin, Western European, Euro, Baltic, Turkish, Central European, Romanian, Pan African Latin, and Basic Greek for far-reaching accessibility.
Thom currently offers nine products through his portfolio on YouWorkForThem, and he’s working on a new project right now, also in collaboration with Alberto Romanos. “It’s a sans serif grotesk typeface with some Dutch influences and will be released on Branding With Type somewhere later this year,” Thom said.
We wish him the best with his future work and we’re certainly looking forward to seeing it!
