Tio Manel
André do Carmo Gonçalves
Tio Manel is a modern, low-contrast sans serif typeface, strongly inspired by Tia Lira — designed in 2004 by Manuel Pereira da Silva (1930–2008), a Portuguese designer, typographer and researcher who made significant contributions to the national typographic landscape.
Starting from the original design of Tia Lira and taking as references other families of the same classification — such as Futura, ITC Avant Garde, New Order or Parafina —, this revival sought not only to reinterpret the typeface but also to update it, exploring new axes of variation.
The result is a typeface with variation in x-height, more specifically in the proportion between it and the cap height. This interpolation produces four distinct instances:
– x-1/2: the x-height is half the cap height;
– x-2/3: two thirds;
– x-3/4: three quarters;
– x-1/1: the full cap height.
These variations give Tio Manel a rich and versatile expression, remaining faithful to the original typeface while extending its limits. The intermediate instances (x-2/3 and x-3/4) offer good proportions for reading in running text, while the more extreme ones (x-1/2 and x-1/1) work well in display contexts, thanks to their striking personality.
This x-height variation axis also opens up expressive possibilities in digital contexts, allowing typographic animations through interpolation between instances and weight variations.
Imprint / Technical Rider:
Year: 2025
Dimensions: 140 × 250 mm; 12 pages
Materials: Munken Lynx 120 g/m².
Production and finishing: Digital printing and hand binding with a three-hole stitch.
Resources and credits: Type design software: Glyphs App; specimen layout: Adobe InDesign.
Curricular Unit:
Type Design (1st year)
Supervising Professor:
Pedro Amado
Keywords: Typography, Revivalism, Geometric, Variable