Helena Zhang is the creator of Departure Mono, an excellent monospaced pixel font. She is also the creator of the instantly-recognizable and unique Phosphor icon library, used by many well-known brands.

In this chat, Helena and I touch upon the ins and outs of font design, her sources of inspiration (spanning movies, books, pop culture, and more!). This is a highly visual talk where we dive into and out of a mind map Helena created, so definitely watch on a screen if possible.

Collection of links from the show:

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Helena's projects: • Departure Mono: http://departuremono.com • Phosphor icon library: http://phosphoricons.com Movies/TV: • Oblivion interfaces by GMUNK: https://gmunk.com/OBLIVION-GFX Type specimen sites: • Grilli Type minisites: https://gt-pantheon.com (more available from https://grillitype.com) Dithering • Ditherpunk article: https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/… Pixel fonts: • Silkscreen: https://kottke.org/plus/type/silkscreen/… Pixel art: • Habbo Hotel: https://habbo.com • Gather: http://gather.town • eBoy: https://eboy.com • World's highest virtual building by Mr. Wong: http://mrwong.de/myhouse • DeeKay: https://instagram.com/deekaymotion/?hl=en… • MEK.txt: https://x.com/michaelmicasso • YUDHO: https://x.com/YUDHO_XYZ • 6VCR: https://x.com/sixveeceear