Matte Black

Cultural Context

In Brazil, the practice of Pixo, characterized by the unauthorized use of public and private spaces for writing, is considered illegal. For young people from peripheral areas, Pixo represents a form of dialogue, allowing them to reclaim urban spaces to express their emotions and thoughts. Additionally, “preto fosco” (matte black) is the primary spray paint color used by these artists.

Process

This typography project is an interpretation of a marginalized culture that “screams” across the buildings of one of the largest cities in South America: São Paulo. We dedicated weeks to research and development, exploring various typographic interpretations and creating a complete set of characters—including uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and special symbols—resulting in a total of 178 glyphs.

During the typeface creation process, we preserved the spirit and essence of the "Pixo" style while applying a technical and funcional approach to the project. We worked on kerning, metrics, diacritics, and special characters to ensure that the final product functions optimally as a display typeface. It aims to offer a new perspective on this anti-establishment expression, revealing beauty where others see only destruction.