How did the two of you get started in type design, and where did you meet? We initially traversed different paths to becoming type designers. My journey began during my univerrsity studies in Melbourne, Australia, where I was fortunate to have two faculty members who graduated with a master’s in type design from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, Netherlands. I spent the final year of my studies soaking up their knowledge before building a type portfolio to gain entry into the master of type design (MATD) program at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.

Kaja studied graphic design in Warsaw, Poland, which led to a fascination with letters and type. Similar to myself, she wanted to further her expertise by undertaking the MATD program, which is where we met. We’ve been inseparable since, having lived in multiple countries including Australia, Canada and now Poland. The greatest thing I gained from my MATD program is Kaja: without her humor, love and support, I doubt I’d have completed the coursework. As an Australian, I’m not built for the harsh, cold, dreary days of English winter—which is amusing considering we’re currently residing in Poland.

What led you to decide to start your own foundry, Tandem Type? Tandem Type was established as a new direction—a partnership of equals—after we relocated from Canada to Poland in 2023. Tandem started for multiple reasons, some of which are worth exploring. In 2022, I was employed with the foundry Tiro Typeworks while Kaja was on maternity leave raising our daughter. The creation of Tandem Type provided us with the flexibility to alternate (as new parents) in raising our daughter while both working as freelancers for Tiro Typeworks. The alternative was having Kaja shoulder the lion’s share of parenthood while I continued to grow as a type designer, and that didn’t suit me at all. Welcoming a new life into the world caused me to reflect on what matters most: investing in fatherhood and co-raising my daughter, or continuing to focus on my career, hoping for further accomplishments that would provide a sense of value. With the former being emotionally enriching, Tiro Typeworks’s cofounder John Hudson and I discussed adapting our professional relationship by including Kaja in Tiro projects, which granted me the opportunity to experience being a more “hands-on” father. Thus, Tandem Type was born out of circumstance and an openness between all to adapt and change.

Speaking for myself, Tandem created a foundation to explore my creativity outside of Tiro. I’d been working with Tiro for six years, and I desired creative freedom to rediscover and reconnect with my creativity by exploring self-driven projects—projects that had bounced around in my head for years. I’d also been defining my worth solely from career outcomes and had become shortsighted toward the important things on my periphery. Typefaces are a tremendous time sink, and there are only so many hours in a day to design quality work, especially when your focus and passion are needed in other avenues of life. Tandem provided the opportunity to find balance and fulfillment in my professional and personal life.

Cutting my teeth at Tiro Typeworks and assisting in the design of its typefaces was a wonderful entry point to the industry. You can learn so much from other designers’ missteps and successes, yet you’re forever attempting to mimic the processes of the original designer because you’re designing their work. You perpetually ask yourself: “How would they have designed this curve?” or “Is this shape correct?” Fonts continue to grow in complexity and require additional assistance, with additional designers attempting to mirror the original designer’s methodology and processes. It’s a conundrum that I often reflect upon, as any type designer would be hard-pressed to copy every precise, creative decision of the original designer’s work. A typeface doesn’t just pop into being—it’s the result of a thousand mouse clicks and subtle nudges, wrangling every character into its desired form. Designers all contain biases in how they approach their creative practice. For example, I can’t design a Tiro Typeworks typeface to the exacting standards of John Hudson because I’m not him, which is a beautiful thing because that’s the human condition. You can only fully know thyself. The positive here is how a collaborative creative relationship can change everyone’s methodology to see new approaches to their work. Have I changed how John works? Who knows? That’s a question you would have to ask him.

What personal experiences or circumstances have most influenced your work or style as a team? Kaja and I bring different experiences to Tandem due to our vastly differing upbringings in two amazingly distinct countries. I come from a strong graphic design background, so I approach each typeface with a loose concept of its visual identity. As the typeface develops, I simultaneously work on its branding, which informs the design, while conceptualizing our intentions for the typeface overall. My approach to type is often hindered by perfectionism and a desire to improve what’s already been refined. Then Kaja’s influence comes into play and coaxes me to move the project forward. She has good instincts in knowing when to move on, while I’d happily refine the work until it’s flawless. Maybe it’s her strong Polish heritage. Whatever the case, she’s right: unreleased work needs to be cast out into the world and shared, not hoarded on a hard drive due to the fear of judgment stemming from artistic self-doubt.

Being married also influences our style as a team, most often for the better, as having a business partner that’s your life partner creates a shared dialogue and ever-present mutual trust. Similar to when we completed our MATD, the experience was rewarding because we were in it together. Without Kaja, Tandem Type would cease to be what it is. Sure, it could be successful as a sole enterprise, but it wouldn’t be as rewarding, and I’d probably be a depressed, stressed-out mess from tinkering in isolation. Creativity tends to flourish when you work with those you trust, and type design is a team effort. Tandem Type works because, after we close up shop at the end of the day, we’re still a team.

Tell us about each of the four fonts published by Tandem Type so far and what inspired their creation. In what settings do you see each of them being applied? Our current library of fonts consists of typefaces designed by Kaja when Nomad Fonts was in operation. During this time, I was employed with Tiro and had minimal input on Alkes, VanSans, Rupert and Larrikin. I’ve since become familiar with these typefaces after we lovingly adopted them over to Tandem Type.

Alkes is Kaja’s first foray into marketing and distributing her ideas into the world. It’s the typeface she designed during the MATD program before its refinement and publication by the FontFabrik foundry. Alkes is considered an academic typeface; shining in long texts, intended for extended reading. It has a huge character set covering Cyrillic, Greek, Latin and Ukrainian, with all styles containing small caps and multiple styles of numerals.

VanSans and Rupert were developed by Kaja when we lived in Vancouver, Canada. VanSans is a humanist sans with a warm character, and it’s by far my favorite release of hers. It’s inspired by the city of Vancouver and embodies how the city made Kaja feel, with its lush hiking forests juxtaposed with the hustle and bustle of the tightly gridded city. Rupert is a geometric sans with an intentionally small character set, which is reflected in its price. One might call it a bare-bones release that works well on two fronts—it’s a reasonably priced, quality typeface and a good entry point for those looking to take their initial dip in the font market. It’s also the main typeface for Tandem Type’s specimens and branding, and we have plans to expand the glyph set soon.

Finally, Larrikin is a reverse-contrast display typeface available for free. It’s a playful take on a Polish national typeface called Półtawski’s Antiqua, designed by Adam Półtawski between 1923 and 1928. All I can say is it’s bold and makes no apologies.

Your question about how we see our typeface being applied brings a smile to my face. After a typeface is released, people can do with it as they please, often in unusual ways, and in disregard of the typeface’s preferred application. After spending months or even years creating a font, it’s peculiar to see a typeface of ours boldly displayed on a shop front when it’s intended for book typesetting. But, it’s the beauty of our job. We do our best to market our fonts at their best within type specimens and graphics, yet some of the best usages can be the weird ones.

What are some of your favorite places to look for inspiration and/or research for your typefaces? Inspiration is such a loaded word and concept. I don’t believe you have to be inspired to create great typefaces or great art. You just start somewhere and keep refining; then, inspiration catches up, and now you’re onto your second idea. I find inspiration comes from questioning how something can be improved or interpreted differently. Nothing is really new in this world; it’s just a collection of established ideas combined in new ways. Every typeface is really a bastard of something else. Everything has been explored to some extent, and the only way to make something yours is to invest yourself in it—something personal, something that speaks to you. Then, the work inspires others because its strength comes from honest ideas and ideals. For me, it’s inspiring to be around honest work that flourished because the designer or artist had to express themselves.

Type design inspiration is a little different. You play with curvature and define the look and feel of the letters, but after inspiration has done its job, all that’s left is a looming mountain of production… And then, more production. Discipline takes the driver’s seat, and the entire character set is designed, polished and pushed over the line. Then, there’s branding to create, copy to write and post-production. The list goes on. I’m a true believer that branding is just as important as the typeface itself as it’s one of the first points of engagement between the type forms and the public. The graphics should always speak to the typeface’s desired audience or create an impact in one way or another.

But, let’s avoid getting into the weeds and address your main question: Where do I look for inspiration and/or research? As a visual thinker, I often connect words with images and reflect on how those images feel emotionally. This is the starting point for any typeface of mine. Images are just a collection of forms and shapes manipulated into an aesthetically pleasing arrangement. It’s an overly broad oversimplification, but it sums up what I’m attempting to explain.

I think many creative people innately construct aesthetically pleasing images in their minds, informed by cultural norms, their visual sensibilities and what they’re accustomed to seeing. What differs here is that we all have ideals about what’s aesthetically pleasing, and hopefully these ideals shift as we mature and learn more about how we fit into the world. The same applies to a typeface. I’m not stating that a typeface should always be beautiful—as some stretch the boundaries of what’s considered legible forms. Yet, a type designer understands that a typeface is a system of relationships that harmonize together to strike a visual balance, regardless of the arrangement of letters that form the words, sentences and paragraphs. Once you understand this, you can manipulate forms and reflect on how they make you feel.

In addition to Tandem Type, Kaja works at Nomad Fonts as a typeface designer and you collaborates with Tiro Typeworks. How do these roles differ from your roles at Tandem Type? Whoa! There’s a lot to unpack here, as our situation is a bit confusing. We still get head scratches, cocked heads and discerning looks about this, so let’s unpack this together.

Nomad Fonts was established by Kaja after we relocated to Canada, and I began working at Tiro Typeworks. In 2023, we established Tandem Type so both of us could release typefaces and work freelance for other foundries, at which point Nomad Fonts’s library was shifted under the Tandem Type moniker. We came to the consensus that a fresh start for both of us was the preferred direction over absorbing me into Nomad Fonts. Tandem Type was a clean slate to take what I had learned at Tiro Typeworks and combine it with Kaja’s business and freelancing skills from Nomad Fonts. The creation of Tandem also ended my full-time employment with Tiro and transitioned me and Kaja to both become freelance contractors with the foundry. We continue to creatively invest in Tiro as we’re familiar with the team’s multitool workflow and ever-growing multiscript font library.

How does work with Tiro Typeworks differ from Tandem Type? The two companies share similarities: both are small. Tiro comprises four people with John, Ross Mills, Kaja and me, while Tandem just comprises Kaja and me. A small company also has the advantage of a transparent workflow, so there’s nowhere to hide when things go awry. Sometimes, the appropriate response is to point the finger at oneself. Typefaces are complicated beasts, and mistakes do happen; rectifying errors is a part of the learning process. A key factor of small companies is that strong communication is paramount because everyone is juggling multiple responsibilities.

Tandem’s role with Tiro has always been autonomous, considering we’ve never shared an office space with John. As I’ve been with Tiro longer, all Tiro projects go through a hand-off process where I delegate work items to either Kaja or myself, depending on the complexities and specializations required of the project. Tiro designs some pretty complicated stuff, where technical challenges can’t always be answered by a quick Google search or anywhere online. A key factor to our success with Tiro is the ability to problem-solve independently and then to rope in John when all else fails.

Tandem Type works a little differently. Kaja and I share an office, which helps immensely in achieving prompt communication and mutual understanding. The closeness of someone you trust is also welcoming during moments of self-doubt. Tandem differs from Tiro in that we’re a newcomer to the type industry, traversing a vastly different landscape to Tiro when it began in 1994—AI, font distribution platforms gouging larger financial percentages from designers, the rise of the internet, doom scrolling, the proliferation of information and so on and so forth. It’s rough out there, but we’re certain Tandem can add value to the type scene.

The beauty of Tandem is that we play to each other’s strengths by having complementary skill sets. Kaja’s great at fleshing out a typeface’s character set while casting a critical eye on the whole project. If something goes awry, she’ll find it! I have a knack for the macro side of a typeface: how the weights and styles work together, and how to approach a typeface’s visual identity. Establishing a business is never easy. Even so, we plan on growing Tandem Type by crafting quality releases for those who need quality typefaces—which is everybody because type is an essential part of visual communication.

What typefaces are in the pipeline for both of you? Tandem has a couple of typefaces at various stages of development, with Velocity being our next major release and my first release through Tandem Type. It’s a high-impact, all-caps display sans, inspired by the fast-paced lunacy of the velodrome and road cycling. Considering Velocity contains no straight horizontal or vertical strokes, it’s taken dedication to fine-tune every character across seven weights, leading up to rolling it across the finish line later this year.

Kaja has been designing a quirky slab serif, which began as Tandem Type’s wordmark before we decided on expanding the typeface to include punctuation and diacritics. Many foundries initially release a sans, a serif and often a non-intrusive workhorse typeface to do the heavy lifting of the foundry’s branding—but we’re approaching things a little differently with Tandem Slab.

Finally, every type designer has a typeface constantly parked in development hell. For us, that’s Mockingale, which we named recently after cycling through a long list of unsuitable alternatives. If we can muster the courage and energy to wrangle its curves into a working font, it will probably evolve into Tandem Type’s biggest release. Mockingale is a mid- to high-contrast sans inspired by the Art Deco period of the early 20th century in Canada and Australia. There are many contemporary typefaces within this genre that draw inspiration from the Art Deco movement in Europe and the United States, yet Mockingale takes a fresh approach by researching the letterforms in Australian posters by artists James Northfield and Percy Trompf.

I’ve also been refreshing all the ex–Nomad Font typefaces by assessing their character coverage and updating their graphics and specimens to better align with Tandem Type’s brand. With all these releases, we’ve always got something in the works.

Do you have any advice for type designers just getting started with their careers today? Newcomers to type design often fixate on originality, overloading a typeface with distinct shapes and too many features in an attempt to stand out. Possibly, they believe this approach is a fast track to accolades and success—which does happen, but it’s rare. The key to being successful isn’t striving for originality; every story has already been told in one way or another. You should instead invest your focus in bringing your own personal interpretation and methods of expression to your work. Create something personal that contains your truth.

A good type designer will also explore a lot of subpar ideas to discover something valuable before expanding upon it. Maybe three average ideas could be combined into a good one. It’s also important to remember that a well-crafted typeface takes months or years of refinement. It’s a reiterative process where you breathe life into the project and it matures. You have to reflect on each of the small developments, and eventually, you’ll have a typeface that has intrinsic value and value to others.

It’s too easy to become overly critical and find fault in your work, striving for perfection while encumbered by self-doubt and wallowing in your artistic shortcomings. Remember that doubt will occasionally creep into your practice, so it’s better to get acquainted and comfortable with uncertainty. Creativity has a way of nudging you in exciting directions when you step outside the realm of comfort and remain open to the possibilities of change.

Similar to my responses for this article, I often question whether my work has value to other people, but that’s outside my control. I have to trust that by creating something of personal value to me, it will have value to others. I believe any form of creativity has value when the artist is inspired from an internal place of honesty and personal truth—so, share your truth. ca