Microsoft - Adlam Display

I was commissioned by McCann New York to work on an incredible initiative for Microsoft. The Project… Adlam Display, a typeface for the Fulani people

Pulaar is the language spoken by the Fulani people in West Africa, but had been at risk of being lost as people were “forced to use the language of their colonizers – Latin and Arabic”, the team explains. Previously without an alphabet, two brothers from Guinea, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry created ADLaM for the Pulaar language.

Existing in handwritten form and incompatible with digital formats, this project created a digital version allowing the Fulani people to communicate digitally and preserve their culture. The alphabet was inspired by Fulani visual culture to help it appeal to the community, I worked closely with the McCann NY team as well as Jamra & Patel to help create the typeface. I was also asked to create a set of downloadable postcards using a selection of characters from the new typeface.