Runa Simi

Runa Simi is a typographic project that was enthused by my half Peruvian hertiage, 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.

Instead of developing an alphabet for the language of Quechua, the Incas recorded their world in knotted strings using the Khipu.

I saw an opportunity here 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.