The Imperium typeface emerged as a university project in 2022 that involved developing a thematic typeface to capture a specific aspect of a video game including its genre, mechanics, content, symbolism, or characters. Star Wars was chosen as the subject due to its intricate lore, futuristic orientation, and complex political landscape offering a rich source of inspiration for exploring decorative design concepts.
Analyzing common shapes within the franchise's spaceships provided valuable insights into creating various characters. However, there remained an inherent challenge in striking a balance between novelty and legibility plus ensuring consistent angles for the gear-like elements. To convey the sense of sleekness and uniformity geometric shapes and abstracted designs were incorporated into the work to mirror the imposing and disciplined aesthetic of the Empire's military.
Research revealed a lack of typefaces directly addressing the style choices, so inspiration was drawn from the work of freelance and expressive quirky fonts. Notably, the unconventional Jokerman typeface played a significant role in shaping the idea of using each character to tell a story achieved by implementing decorative elements including wings, thrusters, cogs, and slanted faces.
Most characters were derived from iconic spaceships in the franchise. The letter 'A' played a pivotal role in shaping the project, setting the direction by establishing a template and grid that integrated sharp elongated shapes exhibiting the unwavering determination of the Empire and its ambition to dominate with colossal weapons of mass destruction. This template helped construct most straight characters and consists of a kite shape divided into three columns that combines the elongated triangle of a star destroyer and the central cockpit of a tie fighter. With minor variations this was transformed into a diverse set of characters by combining the left-most triangle with cogwheels (B, D, and P), and subtracting the central rectangle (H) plus removing the sides (X) or expanding the cockpit (M and W).
