Conceptual projectGLS Institute of DesignType design

Baux Typeface

A 30-character Latin display typeface, built from a 1:1 square with no curves and no tangents.

The Baux Regular type specimen: the full character set A to Z and punctuation in blocky white letters beside a red poster reading This is Baux in a dark underpass.
Role
Type designer, letterer, character sketcher
Timeline
2 weeks
Output
Latin typeface, 30 characters (A-Z + punctuation)
Tools
IllustratorGlyphs
Guide
Prof. Zubin Islam
30Characters
0Curves or tangents
1:1Square as the base unit
2 weeksStart to finished set

Overview

A typeface that looks like it arrived from somewhere else.

Brief

Create a typeface that could hold its own on a movie poster or a brand mark, with an otherworldly look.

My part

Type designer, letterer and character sketcher. I drew every glyph in Adobe Illustrator and finalised the set in Glyphs.

Result

A complete 30-character Latin typeface, the full A-Z alphabet plus punctuation, ready to use as a display font.

Context

What can an alien-ish font look like?

Inspired by iconic movie posters and television hits from the early 2000s, Baux embodies a design philosophy rooted in compactness and symmetry. Its sleek, small-box shape and meticulously scaled-down lettering evoke a futuristic charm. Through the strategic use of negative space and symmetry, Baux presents itself as a language with an intriguingly otherworldly aesthetic.

The aim was to create a typeface that could hold its own on a movie poster or a brand mark, something that looked like it arrived from somewhere else. Crafted for symmetry and uniformity, the characters are devoid of tangents or curves, evoking an almost alien and otherworldly appearance.

The project overview slide: Baux Typeface Design, 2 weeks of type design, with the guide listed beside a red billboard reading Hello Typeface in the blocky Baux letters.

Project overview.

Construction

Every character is built from a single square.

The construction logic started with a single constraint: a 1:1 square as the base unit for every character.

BlocksBuilding blocksDivisions within the square created a composition of unique building blocks. Each character was assembled from these blocks, keeping legibility in mind despite the geometric rigidity. The primary characters were constructed without any slanted or angular cuts, with two exceptions: V and X. X was the most difficult construction, requiring the most iterations to resolve within the grid while remaining readable.
EdgesNo curves, no tangentsThe entire character set was drawn without curves or tangent points. Every edge is a straight line. Every corner is a right angle or a deliberate step. This constraint gave the typeface its distinctive alien quality: the letters look engineered rather than written.
Learning and Construction: a 1:1 square and the letters A, H, S and W each split into two building blocks, beside a mood board of alien glyphs and a mission decoder.

Learning and construction: the 1:1 square, and the letters A, H, S and W broken into blocks.

Process

Drawn by hand, then tried on a poster.

The letters were worked out in sketchbooks and drawn as a full alphabet, and the set was tried on posters. To deepen comprehension, we visited the Indian Type Foundry and interacted.

Sketchbook pages of Baux letterforms in pencil and ink, a notebook page with the full alphabet in black blocks, and a row of red and green They Are Aliens posters passed by a pedestrian.

Sketches, the alphabet in the notebook, and the first poster tests.

Application

Made for headlines at large sizes.

Baux is suited for creating attention-grabbing headlines, logos, and prominent text elements in advertising, packaging, signage, branding, and web design. Its compact form and high contrast make it effective at large display sizes where its construction details are visible.

A wall of red They Are Aliens film posters set in Baux, each with a flying saucer, a tagline and a release date, with a pedestrian walking past.

Baux on a film poster: They Are Aliens.

Outcome

A 30-character Latin typeface.

The final output was a complete Latin typeface of 30 characters: the full A-Z alphabet plus punctuation. Every glyph was drawn in Adobe Illustrator and finalized in Glyphs, ready for use as a display font.

"The font looks very interesting, with a very distinct look."Dr. D. Uday Kumar
"Its legibility is very interesting. It would be interesting to see its application first hand."Faculty review

Takeaways

What I took away.

  1. Constraints produce character. The no-curves, no-tangents rule was the hardest part of the project and the reason Baux looks like itself. Removing options forced invention.
  2. Legibility and novelty are in tension, and the designer's job is to negotiate between them. Every character needed to be readable as a letter while still feeling alien. That negotiation happened glyph by glyph.
  3. The 1:1 square grid made consistency automatic. When every glyph shares the same underlying geometry, the set coheres without forcing it. Grid discipline in type design works the same way it does in layout.
  4. Type skills are interconnected. Font metrics, glyph drawing, type anatomy, form sketching, and form construction are not separate subjects. Seeing them that way changed how I approach letterforms in all design work since.