FBAUP welcomes Joana Ranito, type designer and font engineer at Universal Thirst (@Instagram), for an Open Lecture focused on multi-script type development and multicultural typographic systems in a global, digitally distributed design landscape.
December 10, 5:00 PM — Auditorium PS01, FBAUP
Hosted by: Type Drawing (DT101) — BA in Communication Design
In collaboration with: SIG Ligatures / i2ADS
Institutional support: ATIPO – Portuguese Association for Typography
Joana is part of the third generation of Portuguese type designers, a cohort increasingly recognized in the international type community. Although based in Porto, she works as a digital nomad, collaborating with studios, teams, and writing-system specialists across different regions and time zones. Her career reflects the contemporary reality of type design as a highly global, collaborative, and culturally sensitive practice.
Her professional evolution is rooted in a shift from UX/UI and front-end design to advanced typographic research through the renowned MATD – MA in Typeface Design at the University of Reading, where she developed Curiosa, a multi-script family exploring relationships between Latin, Greek, Bengali. After graduating, she joined Dalton Maag (London) as a font developer and later as team manager, contributing to complex international type projects. Since 2021, she has been part of Universal Thirst, a Porto-based but globally oriented type design studio specializing in Indian writing systems, where she leads and develops multi-script projects — particularly in Bengali.
In this lecture, Joana will share her journey and reflect on two major case studies: Noto Sans Bengali — Google Noto Project A redesign focused on improving legibility, structural consistency, and digital performance for one of the world’s most widely used writing systems; and Curiosa — MATD 2017 A multi-script research project examining formal, historical, and cultural alignments across diverse writing systems.
The session will explore essential themes for students of DT101 — Type Drawing, including type design methodologies, font engineering, historical research, cross-script consistency, cultural responsibility in type design, and the management of multicultural projects in international teams. The lecture is open to students, researchers, and the wider type community associated with FBAUP and the SIG Ligatures.
Joana Ranito is a type designer and font engineer at Universal Thirst, a type design studio specializing in Indian writing systems. She studied Communication Design at ESAD—Matosinhos and began her career as a web designer and front-end developer in Porto. In 2017, she completed the MA in Typeface Design at the University of Reading, where she developed a lasting interest in multi-script type design. After graduating, she joined Dalton Maag in London as a font developer and later as a team manager. Since 2021, she has been part of Universal Thirst, where she develops and leads Latin and Indian type projects, with a particular focus on Bengali.