Quiroga Serif began in 2007 with the name Quadratta Serif.

The main objective of this type is to count with the necessary signs for Latin America, this is to say, that has the set of characters used in official languages and in dialects. After accomplishing this goal we want to establish a new system of Latin American signs, and promote the use of dialects and languages so they donít cease to exist. The sets available at current time, in alphabetical order, are: spanish, portuguese, quechua, guaraní, french, aymara, n·huatl, taÌno, maya, mapudungun. As a secondary objective we proposed to complete other sets for other languages outside this region.

This typography was designed for continuous text, legible at medium and small sizes, with great saving of space, optimized for 6, 8, 10 and 12 points. The morphology is a mix between tradition and innovation; it has a vertical axis, thick serifs, tall ´xª height, light modulation and a lot of internal space between letters: key to improve legibility at small sizes.

At this time the las version (in progress) has over 1600 signs supporting more that 60 languages. It also has several OpenType features: small caps, superior/inferior numbers, standard ligatures, historic ligatures, stylistic alternates, and more.

Formally, my idea was to make a serif type that had a unique color, this is visible due to the light modulation. This is also complemented with the incorporation of not common, alternative signs. Some parts of the letters that are usually curb or diagonal where made horizontal (for example: a, q, p, etc.), this makes the eye of each character to be wide and unique.

In typography keeping a system of signs with constants and variables is very important, Quadratta Serif was made with a lot of care for this things. For example, we can observe that the ìPî is open and so, consequentially, to respect the system, the ìpî also is, this happens between various pairs of signs.

The serifs (wedge type) suffered diverse variations during the process. At the begining they where thicker and ended vertically, but this cosed a great deal of printing errors. And so we decided to modify them by giving them an angle to avoid visible errors in medium and small sizes.

The ch, and ll ligatures where rescued because they are a part of our current spanish alphabet. The historic ligatures and stylistic alternates give different options to users who want different alternatives within a text. The accentuation signs were composed in a middle line above all signs to avoid visual shock. We also gave plenty of importance to small caps numbers, mathematical signs and currency signs so that the could interact well.

Typography created in Montevideo, Uruguay. The project’s development typography Economica covered much of 2007 and received assistance of colleagues from all over Latin America. It was inspired by saving space for publishing texts without loss of height. Includes a comprehensive set of characters that lets you deal with diverse languages in its four variants.