Juan Pablo de Gregorio is a typographer and graphic designer based in Chile. He established Letritas, a foundry whose name translates to “Little Letters,” to provide graphic designers with type designs built with innovation and high functionality in mind.
Juan Pablo began designing type back in 2001 using the early software and computers that were available at the university during that time. Since those “olden” days, the technology has changed considerably but the bones of good typography have not – and they likely never will. Type design plays such a vital role when it comes to graphic design and it’s important to honor the craft that goes into designing a font. Type design pairs artistry with mathematics and there is so much that goes into it beyond simply creating nice-looking letters – something that Juan Pablo has studied extensively.
Much of Juan Pablo’s work is centered around a given concept depending on the project that he’s working on. He wants to create letter sets that the world has never seen before and never knew how much it needed. He puts great care into everything from the composition to the architecture to the end functionality of every type design. That isn’t to say he never feels uncertain about a project, but he reminds himself to never be afraid to try, to keep pushing forward, because it will work out in the end – one way or another.
One of his more recent releases through YouWorkForThem is Liliana, a geometric sans serif type design with subtle script elements. While Liliana’s basic architecture is rather on the conservative side, there are a number of lovely features that illuminate the sweet, feminine personality that sets it apart from the rest. This type design merges sans serif structure with cursive script lettering beautifully and effortlessly, although we’re sure a lot of work went into its design and execution.
Alternate characters give Liliana an incredible amount of design flexibility. Whether you’re working on short blocks of text or longer passages in web copy, Liliana is designed to work flawlessly. The spirit of this type design was centered around the letter “s” – a character whose design was inspired by manuscript writing. Even if your design project won’t utilize that letter, alternate characters for other letters will provide you with a touch of that same softly flowing carefree personality.
Liliana is available in Thin, UltraLight, Light, Regular, Normal, SemiBold, Bold, Black, and Heavy, with corresponding italics for each. The italics intentionally have a 10-degree slant, giving them a tangible sense of tension and agility. The range of weights within the Liliana family makes it appropriate for everything from displays and signage to advertising, headlines, subheadings, titling, posters, logos, letterhead, package design, marketing materials, inspirational quotes and social media imagery, merchandise, apparel, stationery, and greeting cards.
Additional features include capitals to small caps, case sensitive forms, standard ligatures, ordinals, small caps, stylistic alternates, and absolutely gorgeous swash letters. Liliana’s multilingual support is extensive, covering Basic Latin, Western European, Euro, Catalan, Baltic, Turkish, Central European, Romanian, Pan African Latin, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Igbo Onwu for accessibility for 219 Latin-based languages in 212 countries.
Letritas Foundry currently offers 10 products through YouWorkForThem, including a range of serifs, sans serifs, and display fonts for a variety of design projects. Visit their portfolio to check out the rest of their work and if you love what you see, bookmark it so you won’t miss out on any of their future additions!
