Tucson begins work on an official city font

A new city design project

Tucson has begun work on an official city font, a typeface intended to give city communications a shared visual identity. The project’s first step is finger painting.

AZPM reported on the effort in a story titled “Tucson is designing an official city font. The first step? Finger paint.” The project connects an everyday children’s art activity with the early stage of a formal city design process.

Why the first step matters

Starting with finger paint places informal mark-making at the beginning of the font’s development. It is the first publicly described activity in the project and comes before the city has an official finished typeface.

The project is about more than selecting an existing font. Tucson is designing one of its own, which means the work begins with creating visual ideas that can eventually be shaped into letterforms.

What comes next

The city’s font is still being designed. The final appearance, the timetable for completing it and the details of how it will be used have not been announced.

For now, the clearest milestone is the opening exercise: Tucson’s official font project has started with finger paint.