Julia Sysmäläinen
Julia Sysmäläinen grew up in a bilingual Finnish-Russian family in Carelia. Since childhood, languages have been a major topic in her life. Studying philology and later graphic design she focussed on the visual aspects of language. Her professional interests are nowadays centered around "the written word – its image and its meaning".
Julia’s debut in type design was Kyril, a semiserif custom font, designed as a Cyrillic/Latin family for the corporate identity of the paper company Kondopoga. Kyril was presented in the Souvenir type design exhibition of the ATypI Conference 2006.
Julia’s recent interest in type design is focussing on handwriting styles from historical sources – with both Cyrillic and Latin background. Work is proceeding on several font projects: Her desk is stacked with all kinds of original and facsimile manuscripts, but those of Austro-Hungarian writer Franz Kafka are lying on top of everything else.
In December 2008, FF Mister K – named after the main character in two of Kafka’s novels – was released with three text faces. FF Mister K Dingbats followed one year later. Mister K is not only a type family but also the visualization of a personality with many different facets. Accordingly, the Mister K Family is continuously growing. FF Mister K won a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design at the international Modern Cyrillic 09 Competition in Moscow and a Premier Award at the International Society of Typographic Design Competition in London.
Julia works at Edenspiekermann in Berlin and is a visiting teacher at the Lahti Institute of Design. She lives in Germany and Finland.
[Julia Sysmäläinen, April 2010]
Web: http://juliasys.com/
Fonts designed by Julia Sysmäläinen
