Myto is a display typeface born out of the interest in mythical animals from the Middle East and a desire to combine character design and typography. Myto's expressive animal characters play with the boundaries between image and text. A strong silhouette and decorative but clear details are emphasized in the characters. Myto includes Finnish capital letters, numbers and selected symbols. The aim was to design characters with interesting shapes and personalities, but they also had to be recognisable as letters and numbers. The letters, numbers, brackets, exclamation mark and question mark are 26 different Middle Eastern mythical animals. Other symbols are stylised smoke. Myto is designed for writing words and headings, but also works in short text.
All the symbols are listed above and below them each one's respective mythical creature is written.
Some background info!
In my bachelor's degree in visual communication design in Aalto University, one of the guest lecturers in the typography course taught Arabic typography. The final assignment for the course was to create a booklet from the work done during the course, with a title on the cover using letters of my own design. I came up with the title "1001 Arabic works" (1001 Arabialaista Työtä in Finnish), and got the idea of making letters from Arabic animals. Below is the final work:
I love designing animal characters and mythical creatures, so I decided to combine these elements in my book design. The challenge of designing animal characters as recognisable letters was very fun. After the course, I had the desire to one day design the rest of the Finnish alphabet and eventually I was inspired to also design numbers and special characters for the typeface. The aim was to make the letters and numbers recognisable and to strike a balance between ornamentation and clarity. It was fascinating to explore Middle Eastern mythology during the project and I hope that Myto will inspire others to do the same.
