It started as a poster for a local gig I was playing with friends. Reverse-contrast letterforms, blocky and western. After the gig I kept sketching, working up an uppercase for a typeface.

The first sign of disco flare appeared in the capital K, with a curved leg.

Sketches explored weight distribution. Reverse contrast puts the thicks in the horizontal strokes, so most of the drawing went into finding where the curves had to cut into the slabs to take weight back out.

The process isn't linear. Sketch, pull the letters into Glyphs, refine, proof, back to the page, sketch again. Each pass turns up the next thing to fix.

The spread above still has alternates open. The lowercase w sits there both ways: curved bottoms and flatter diagonal ones. On the y and g I shaved the diagonals harder, cutting into the bottom slabs so the join from bowl to thin stem doesn't go too dark.

The first digital cut came out of a lockdown type group: designers who'd studied together at Old School New School of Lettering and Typography, keeping in touch through Veronica Grow's virtual meetups. Having to bring something to each catch-up was enough to get the sketches into Glyphs.

Two crits moved it forward, both through Type Crit Crew: Ben Kiel and James Edmondson. The notes that stuck were about colour pooling in the centre of the letters and where to push the expression versus pull it back.

Lonsdale: condensed display typeface drawn from Melbourne ghost signs, available now. View the full catalogue.