Change is happening all the time, it is up to us what to make of it. AI is a big game changer for many industries and type design is not excluded. As a type and branding designer, both maker and user of type, these are my reflections on AI tools for making typefaces.
When facing AI, designers are called not only to adapt and make use of the new technology, but also to think about what this change means for our profession and how we can use AI in a way that also gives value. You are responsible for the quality of your work and should be careful not to let the tool dictate the result.
New type software and open source fonts have already changed the type industry and opened up for more people to create and experiment with typefaces. Today we can develop large type families faster. Interpolation and other programmed tools allow for speeding up the process.
From the scribe to movable type, to photocomposition and digital type, AI tools seem to be another step in this evolution. They have potential in facilitating ideation, particularly in display typography, where they can spark new directions in design projects. However, inspiration is not the same as intention, and productivity is not the same as value. So we could get more innovation, but also more noise.
Tools alone don’t matter without the knowledge, experience, and historical understanding to assess what works and why. For a typeface to work well it needs to be optimized for the intended use. You need a trained eye and ask the relevant questions to be able to judge the quality of your work, whether it is automated or not. It is like with any other tool, having the machine doesn’t necessarily make the job better.
Many of the concerns with automated type in our community are not related to AI technology but to capitalism. As finding shortcuts are winning most of the time. When a company is buying a typeface for short-term projects, such as a marketing campaign or a packaging project, they don’t always look for perfection. There are factors like timeframe and budget that also influence their decisions. It’s getting harder to justify type design as a craft that can takes months or years.
However, there will always be projects and contexts where the clients are looking for handcrafted design, valuing the process and the story behind the work. While handcrafted design holds personal meaning for designers and appeals to certain brands, it unfortunately rarely outweighs profit-driven targets. This tension isn’t new.
At NM Type, our typefaces carry personal value and are shaped through a hands-on craft process. Inspired by everything from a South African dancer’s movement to the early letterforms of a four-year-old child, our work sits between design and art. Craft is the foundation of our practice, and within type design there is always an artistic impulse. The exploration that happens during the crafting process is lost if you rush to the final result and miss the exploration and sidetracks that sometimes end up being what makes your design great. A slower process is what leaves room for new ideas.
There is great potential in AI typography, but it raises significant ethical and moral concerns. Legal frameworks lag behind the technology, allowing tools to be built on existing creative work without recognition, or compensation to the original type designers. It is difficult to know what data has been used to train the machine and therefore who should be credited, or whose work the output is built upon.
As a designer, context and history give work meaning and credibility. Without them, even polished results, especially those created with AI can feel hollow, as they lack the story of why they look that way and the acknowledgment of what came before. Design is built on history, and understanding that history is what separates interpretation from imitation. Valuing this heritage is essential to maintaining pride and integrity in our profession. Designers will need to communicate the value of crafted design and help their clients see when it’s worth adding that extra quality to a project.
For designers creating custom typefaces through automated processes, transparency will become essential. As AI enters type design, authorship becomes less clear. When letterforms are generated rather than drawn, traditional ideas of ownership and exclusivity become blurred. Rights are no longer defined solely by the designer’s hand, but by human intent and input, legal frameworks, and the terms of the tools involved.
I believe we shouldn't lose the human element in design. It’s what gives work its value. At the same time, new technologies can’t be ignored, you need them to work more efficiently. The new AI tools for making typefaces can help improve what we make or weaken it. It all depends on how we use them.