Existing Fonts

I then searched for existing Amharic fonts and the only latinised/modern version of the amharic script I have found is Noto. I can’t say that much positive about it but note that some of the odd letters can be explained by the font being inspired by handwriting with a pencil and not a brush.

The two prettiest Amharic fonts in my book are Nyala and Abyssinica SIL but they are both — as most Amharic fonts — fairly calligraphic with high contrast and lots of detail. This is why e.g. Nyala is 444kb which is a lot for a font with 912 characters. In comparison Gidole is currently 83kb and has 888 characters.

My Font

I want the fidäls to match the latin letters in Gidole which is a minimal and slightly geometric sans serif. This means I can’t use Nyala and Abyssinica for direct inspiration but they serve as great guidelines for overall shapes, dimensions, angles, proportions etc.

The First Letters

I learned reading and writing in the local kindergarten but moved to a Scandinavian boarding school at 7 where we weren’t really taught Amharic.

So I forgot how to read and write but I know how the fidäls should look and one of the words I remember seeing most is my own name so I started drawing that. The fidäls in my name are also diverse which meant I had to make quite a few design choices that other letters will also incoorporate.

I will talk about those design choices in the next post(s) and for now just show you a couple of “old” sketches anda comparison with other fonts.