Beyond cementing GT America’s position as a typeface for the world, this latest release also forms part of the foundry’s ongoing efforts to step outside of their comfort zone. Speaking from Tokyo, where he is in the middle of a “long term commitment to expand my own horizons beyond my Western-focused design background,” Noël says Grilli Type wants to see themselves as “part of a more global design community”. He adds: “the collaborative work on GT America Intl reflects that.”
However, when Noël refers to the work as being collaborative, he is referring to more than just the joint efforts of his team – for this newest instalment of scripts, Grilli Type actually worked with external designers and consultants all around the world to ensure that each one was up to scratch. Some of these collaborators were already known to Noël and fellow co-founder Thierry Blancpain, who had set their sights on working with them for this project, while others were interviewed for the role. Given the distinct differences between the Latin alphabet and these writing systems, it was crucial that the designers were native speakers, with a strong understanding of how the GT America approach could be applied to each script.
Thierry explains that this process was less like translation, and more like interpretation – “akin to translating a book from one language to another”, where the process is technically referred to as translation, but the end result forgoes the literal in favour of language that reads well. Similarly, here the aim was to end up with a “nuanced result that feels comfortable to a native reader,” as opposed to directly applying every rule from the original Latin script.