IDEA 403. Typeface design for the voice of the world: The Works of Toshi Omagari

Born in 1984 in Kasuga City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Toshi Omagari is a typeface designer and the founder of Tabular Type Foundry and Omega Type Foundry. He loves video games, movies, and ramen noodles, and nowadays he lives and works in London, and his passions include typeface creation and roasting coffee beans.

After completing his graduate work at Musashino Art University, Omagari worked on a revision of the European typeface Centaur, the basis for the new edition of Centaur, which is included in this issue’s supplemental volume. In 2010, he enrolled in the typeface design course at the University of Reading in the U.K. After completing the two-year master’s degree program, he joined the world-renowned type foundry Monotype. The past eight years have given him the chance to be involved in the design of many European typefaces, but he has also been actively involved in the design of non-Latin typefaces for languages such as Mongolian, Tibetan, Cyrillic, and Greek. He has participated in Google’s Noto Fonts project and is recognized worldwide as a leading typeface designer of multilingual typefaces.

This special issue contains the work of a large body of typeface designers who transcend traditional typeface design and calligraphy practices; it approaches history through the reprinting and re-engraving of European typefaces; it features examples of custom typeface production and extensive collaboration, and also shows the development of unique applications and digital devices for a variety of typefaces and systems. The work of Omagari reaches beyond the realm of the conventional typeface designer to encompass a wide range of cross-disciplinary activities.