In my last semester at Parsons School of Design in New York, Fall 2023, I took the typeface design class with Sabrina Nacmias, the founder of Faire Type and made my own typeface from scratch for the first time. Ever since I started my education in design, I have been fascinated by the ways design layout is governed by a structured grid or set of rules. My curiosity extends to the exploration of typographic designs guided by specific grids. Navigating the delicate balance between creativity and legibility presents a challenge I wanted to tackle. 

With my heritage in Japan, I realized that Japanese patterns on textiles consist of different ranges of shapes, which I decided to take inspiration from. One of the patterns is called “shippo” meaning “seven treasures” in Japanese. The Shippo pattern consists of endless circles overlapping each other.