{"id":616220,"date":"2026-09-30T09:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T09:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/616220\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T09:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T09:40:14","slug":"swirls-beads-and-art-nouveau-roots-emily-klaebe-on-type-design-as-world-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/616220\/","title":{"rendered":"Swirls, beads and Art Nouveau roots: Emily Klaebe on type design as world building"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-block-key=\"hfg7w\">Whether it\u2019s typefaces created out of bead-like modules, bubbly spirals or the playfulness of bending letter systems, Portland-based graphic and type designer <a href=\"https:\/\/emilyklaebe.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Emily Klaebe<\/a> thinks of type as \u201cthe ambassador of sentiments and culture\u201d. She feels that people often look at a typeface and form an immediate association, each feature giving subtle or overt cues about tone and meaning. So when she designs a typeface, she makes sure every detail is drawn with intention, using the practice as an opportunity to world build.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"38cp6\">Over the years Emily has worked as a senior designer at Order, design lead at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itsnicethat.com\/news\/order-design-order-type-foundry-graphic-design-011221\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Order Type Foundry<\/a> and a type design instructor at Portland State University Graphic Design. Spanning both sides of the medium creating custom typefaces for proprietary use as well as promoting typefaces for other designers, Emily understands the wide ranging uses of typography. In her Kickdrum typeface, Emily plays with geometric rigidity found in 70s letter systems by utilising organic swirls that appear like swirly lollipops, snail shells or the cochlear, of all things.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"f5si9\">In other projects, Emily plays with type design that is made up of lots of tiny parts: \u201cMissive Serif and Missive Bead are <a href=\"https:\/\/kindtype.co\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">companion typefaces<\/a> \u2013 Missive Serif is an ornate display family with dramatic flares, gooey ball terminals and Art Nouveau roots. Missive Bead distills those legible display serif forms into a grid-based system for embroidery, using a framework designed around the elongated proportions of bugle beads,\u201d says Emily. \u201cAll of my typefaces are rooted in a distinct concept while remaining ubiquitous. Promoting a typeface means creating a microcosm \u2013 combining colours, materials and typesetting \u2013 that shows where the typography might live.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether it\u2019s typefaces created out of bead-like modules, bubbly spirals or the playfulness of bending letter systems, Portland-based&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-616220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}