Lindsay Gallagher
Peruvian
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art
Lenguas Indigenas son importantes showcases a typeface that Gallagher designed in 2020. This project in its entirety was inspired by the Khipu, and an attempt to capture its aesthetic atmosphere in the realm of a display typeface—a synthesis of digital and artifact. It is also an effort to shine light on indigenous Andean values and the endangered language of Quechua.
“Runa Simi is a typographic project that was enthused by my half Peruvian heritage, self reflection, and a profound interest in the endangered language of Quechua—an indigenous language that my grandmother (in addition to Spanish) was fluent in. Quechua was largely an oral language, never a written one. The fact that it has survived for as long as it has, is something I find quite remarkable.” —L.G.
Instead of developing an alphabet for the language of Quechua, the Incas recorded their world in knotted strings using the Khipu. Gallagher saw an opportunity to design a typeface in response to this unique string-and-knot based medium that served as a way of communicating and documenting statistical information, oral traditions, cosmology & philosophy.
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