Senior Project Blog 2 - 02.02.2026

This is my second weekly blog for my thesis!
Over the past week, I sat down to decide on a thesis idea that works for me while also being realistic in terms of time, since I already have some project commitments outside of school. I would like to integrate the other projects I am working on into this to make it a project I can be fully proud of, and it hit me that making fonts would be something that benefits me long-term, as I do not like the idea of paying thousands for commercial licenses of text if I can do it myself. While I want to continue working on a 3D simulator, I would rather show it elsewhere in a fully fleshed-out venue so I don't need to transport materials for the senior thesis, and I realistically need much more than 4 months to make it showable. I also realized that in order to make the 3D good, I need to come up with some really good worldbuilding, and need to build fonts to do that as well!

I did mention this in the last blog, but graphic design, printmaking, etc, is the primary medium I work with both in work and at school, and so I would love to focus more on this medium as something that I can not only continue to work on, but also on the tools that make up my own work. Typography is something I really enjoy & have studied over the past few years, through mediums like printmaking, graphic design, and even lenticulars.

And so, I would like to create an initial Type Foundry for my senior thesis.

The steps I would like to follow in order to present the initial stages of a working type foundry, which I can operate as a side thing for my LLC when I graduate is:

DELIVERABLES

01. A website where I can sell my fonts online, connected to this website (thinking machewtypes.com or type.machewtops.com ?). This would have a working storefront with free academic font downloads and commercial license agreements. I would also add open-source fonts that can be downloaded and modified.

02. A series of fonts detailed below for specific client projects, as well as more playful or fun fonts, all downloadable by the public. I am creating all my fonts in Illustrator and importing them into Glyphs 3, which supports features like variable fonts and more, letting me really play with software and digital design!!

03. A print specimen showing all the fonts in use, which can be given out during the senior thesis, that doubles as a business card with a download QR code.

04. Potentially a tote bag or free additional medium like stickers with text in the font I make..? I have a screen-printing setup at my house and would love to make tote bags and stickers featuring my work for people to use. I wear a cargo.site tote bag that I got years ago at the Printed Matter book fair, and I still wear it daily!

LIST OF FONTS

A Variable Font that will be used in the next Onassis ONX exhibition, announced before the senior thesis showcase occurs (I am in charge of the design, so I will be designing the font to then make the design!)
A serif font based on the Magna Carta, which will be used in MGNA Crrrta’s next music video for a song in their upcoming album Beautiful Disaster, as well as tour visuals for their next tour (got the OK!), and potentially a Sans Serif Condensed version based on this but modernized, so that I can use it in their more modern graphics.

pre-save link to their upcoming album, which the tour for this will feature the font in visuals.

MGNA Crrrta is the current cover of hyperpop on Spotify!!!!!

BONUS: Some kind of Sans based on Activ Grotesk and Typelabo N+, with more geometric yet smooth curved lines that I can use on my personal website. This would likely be a Regular and Bold font. I also am really inspired by the font used for memoryland by CFCF, which is a custom font I believe made for the album by Mirko Velimirovic. It is super beautiful, and for the specimen, the way that this type interacts with images is a huge graphic design inspiration for me!

title text for memoryland by CFCF, custom font designed by Mirko Velimirovic.

BONUS: An Atypography font that challenges typography conventions while still being readable. I would like to incorporate this into the cover of the Specimen I make. This would likely be used partially in MGNA Crrrta visuals if made in time, and I would also just like to play with this for artwork and other things. If I can create an installation setup, I would like to make this part of the design.
A display/for fun font, which challenges basic design conventions. I am starting with this to get more used to font design, and will have this done this week (I am making a pretzel font! I baked a bunch of pretzels (unbaked is lowercase and baked is uppercase), then am photographing them and converting them into a font with kerning this week, and will likely posterize them to work as a colored font. I have photos of all the letters now, organized in Photoshop A-Z for both uppercase and lowercase, and I've kerned the font names. I just need to convert this into Glyphs 3 so I can make it a downloadable font. Otherwise, this test round took me only 3 days! Of course, this ignores many typographic conventions, but it does serve as a pretty good initial exercise.

Some photos from Feb 1st of me baking Pretzel Letters.

Pretzype Display Name written out as the font!

BONUS?: A second display font, but for a more important purpose. For the 2025-2026 Season, Onassis Stegi is using an in-house font that reflects the theme “families”. While I am not at liberty to reveal what the next ONX show is, I am playing with more digital versions of this in-house font and would like to make an e-signature version of this handwritten look to incorporate into the poster alongside the variable font! As part of this, I need to make Greek and English versions of this font (and the variable one!!!). Since this is supposed to be handwritten, I am going to make 2/3 alternate versions of each letter. Using lenticulars, I would like the squiggles on the line to move when the lenticular is moved (this would make this a page of the specimen). When actually typing, it would just be randomized but set to be different if the same letter is typed back-to-back.

Poster from Stegi with the upper and lower-case English versions of the “Families” in-house font.

PLAN / SCHEDULE FOR THE SEMESTER

Feb 5: Pretzype Display (Basic ABC font, no special characters or numbers by Feb 5)
Feb 10: Magna Serif & Magna Sans Condensed (specific letters to make specific words before Feb 10)
End of Feb: Magna Serif and Magna Sans Condensed (fully functional by the end of February to use on tour, with Italics, Kerning, and Bold)
Before Spring Break: Personal Sans for Website (English Basic Font, this may get axed to work on the variable font family earlier, depending on how much work is done on Magna Serif and Sans).
Before Spring Break: Create a rough specimen design with placeholders for the variable font, and decide by this point whether it is realistic to add extra fonts beyond Magna Serif and the Onassis ONX family.
After Spring Break: Onassis ONX Font Family / Variable Font Beginning (Must finish Basic, Bold, and Thin versions by the end of March)
After Spring Break: Gather and collect any footage from MGNA Crrrta Tour visuals, as well as any other media that uses the custom font to add to the specimen “in-use” examples.
April 15: Implement a variable font from Thin to Bold, and add Black and Condensed versions to complete the family. Depending on my own timing with font creation, add work on atypographic font to be ready around here, will update on this each week on timing feel (would only be abc and 123)
End of April: Finish rough draft of Specimen print with all fonts, and begin the printing process.
Early May: Post and finish any design for the next ONX showing of works that uses the fonts I designed, so I can include them in my specimen & use it as an ad.
Early May: Resolve any printing inconsistencies and create the installation format; print items like tote bags or stickers to give out!
SHOWCASE: Highlight the fonts I worked on, include a specimen showing them in use across graphic designs, and include a QR code so attendees can download and use them for free! Additionally, give out items like business cards, postcards, or tote bags, or any medium that lets me leave a lasting impact after the show.
I need to figure out where the atype font & the STEGI families font alteration fit in this. I will at least get the stegi one done, as I really want to update the font to fit the vibe of what I am designing next, but it might not be a fully fledged font and more of a one-off thing. I have 0 intention of posting that one publicly, though, so I might just add it to the specimen and keep it offline, as it is an in-house font. For the Atype, I really, really want to get this done and will probably design it throughout February-April, so I can make the font on the tote bag, the postcard, and the specimen cover an Atype font (since it blends really well into the background!). This project has a really useful lifespan after graduation: I can use it for my actual job, potentially continue designing fonts and earn some side income, and, in general, make fonts for my own shows and designs instead of being at the mercy of other designers. I really like the idea of designing my own tools, and I think that since each font takes less than a month to make, it lets me play with the full breadth of design work and different media it will be used for. I also really wanted to incorporate the work I am doing throughout Feb and March with MGNA Crrrta into this, as it is taking a ton of bandwidth from me in the first half of the semester, and is something I am proud of professionally, so this works better for me to add to that and my portfolio.

matt toups

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