Introducing… Aronui!
Lift Education was contracted by the Ministry of Education to produce an open-source font for early level readers. Aronui is the result!
I worked with David Buck of Sparky Type to seek out an existing open-source typeface as the base for Aronui. The font was amended and characters were added to make it suitable for students in the early stages of reading.
What exactly makes a font suitable for students in the early stages of reading?
Well, we rounded out the “a” and the “g” with a hook to make the letters similar to how the students are taught to write them. We also added diacritical marks, such as macrons and glottal stops, for te reo Māori and Pasifika languages.
The font was typeset, experts were consulted, feedback was gathered, adjustments were made and, finally, the font received a name: ‘Aronui’ refers to the ‘kete of knowledge’.
Aronui is open-source and is free for anyone to use. You can download it by clicking on the file links below.
Happy typing!
Adam Pryor, designer