ABOUT THIS PROJECT  "Design inspiration tends to hit home when the mind is in neutral and the mood relaxed, creating a heightened receptiveness to new ideas and observations. At moments like this, the insane plumage and postures of a bird of paradise can seem like a great starting point for a typeface. At least, it was for Cristian Vargas when he came across an online source full of illustrations of the strange bird—denizens of the tropical rainforests and jungles of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and parts of eastern Australia—while he was studying at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Netherlands. For Vargas, the lavish drawings sparked a memory of a BBC video he’d seen years ago on the same subject. After revisiting it, Vargas realized there was a similarity between the shape of the birds and a set of numbers he’d recently sketched out. Then he drew on some larger connections: male birds of paradise completely alter their appearance during elaborate courtship rituals, flashing long, colorful, tufted, trailing plumes to attract females. To Vargas, the “normal” non-courting state of the bird, in which it looks like a basic bird very much like any other, felt analogous to a text typeface—both are more functional than visually attractive. In that vein, a bird of paradise in showy, courting mode was very similar to a display typeface: transformed, striking, and meant to get maximum attention. Just like that, he’d found the visual concept for an entire typeface. Salvaje won a medal from the TDC in 2017." — This is a fragment of a full article written by: Angela Riechers

TYPEFACE DESIGNER  
Cristian Vargas ©
FOUNDRY 
Typozon
FONT ENGINEERING 
Coppersandbrasses
TYPEFACE AWARDS
Type Directors Club No.63
Excellence in Typography