Brimming with personality, The Northern Block’s Zabawa emulates the natural flow of handwriting

Unmistakably unique and vibrantly playful, Zabawa is a handwritten typeface designed by Joanna Angulska in collaboration with The Northern Block. The Newcastle-based type foundry reached out to Angulska, an independent designer and lettering artist, for her unrivaled ability to create authentic handwritten scripts. Drawing inspiration from the intimate spontaneity of personal handwriting, Zabawa encapsulates the raw essence of doodles on a napkin or hurried scribbles on a shopping list. When it comes to a handwrought typeface, its unique details determine how it’s perceived. “Choosing and finding a good handwritten typeface is not easy,” Angulska notes. Because of this, she was eager to contribute to this niche. “At the heart of the project was the idea of demonstrating spontaneity and lightness in letters, while still delivering the integrity of a complete typeface system that is useful and accessible. Finding this sweet spot was a challenging task.” This isn’t achieved through one letter, but through the entire typeface, so the decision-making process required numerous tests. “Selecting the final versions for each letter sometimes came down to testing 20 different options, several of which were refined as stylistic sets.” The typeface was designed with a pointed brush, a tool that has a lot of potential due to its flexibility. “I had already worked with a pointed brush on a lettering project during my studies, and I think this tool offers a lot of possibilities due to the flexibility of the brush,” Angulska tells us. “You can play with the degree of pressure on the paper and thus achieve completely different effects.”