31 July 2018
5th Class Student’s Newly designed ‘New Ross’ Font launched & announced as 2018 Kennedy Sumer School Hashtag
The fifth class students at Bunscoil Rís in New Ross, County Wexford have designed and now launch their town’s very own font style which can be downloaded and used on Microsoft word.
The school students were invited to participate in a visual arts project for New Ross commissioned by Liz Burns, Arts Officer at Wexford County Council and the project was curated by visual artist Mary-Ruth Walsh. Cartoonist, illustrator and filmmaker Elida Maiques was also invited and designed a series of workshops with the children.
The student’s design inspiration came from the unique architecture of New Ross town which according to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage boasts over 300 historic buildings and street furniture of note, they interpreted this achitectural history and made it into letters. The school children of Bunscoil Rís participated in ‘drawing walks’ to explore the details of the rich architecture of New Ross town and back in the classroom Elida Maiques showed the children how to make letters of the alphabet and turn them into homes, otherwise known as the rich architectural perspectives translated into letters. Elida then used these designed alphabet letters to make them into the new font, the adornments of the letters disappeared but the rhythm of the hands that drew them stayed, making each letter unique to each child.
Following the letter designs, the children’s letters were then developed into both upper and lower case in UNICODE Latin characters. In total 493 characters were made so users of the font can write in any language. As the children’s class is multicultural this new font can be used to communicate with their friends and relatives at home and abroad, knowing it was designed by them and inspired by the town’s architecture.
Commenting on the font design and style, Mary-Ruth says, “The idea was to look again at our town, its buildings and unique architecture in a totally fresh way. We wanted to bring attention to the very fabric of our surroundings, which is often taken for granted. We didn’t know that we were about to see the extraordinary power of line and drawing in a different light.”
Coinciding with the launch of the town’s font is the Kennedy Summer School, who have teamed up with the young designers to use the font to launch the 2018 Kennedy Summer School hashtag. #JFKSS
This font is now freely available online here
