Eleni Beveratou, creative director at the London type studio Dalton Maag, comes back to Daring Forever. ~

Her first conversation looked back at her origin story; this one looks ahead at what it means to be a type designer in 2026. Eleni explains why accessibility and multi-script design now lead client conversations, how variable fonts are bringing back craft that was lost in the early digital years, and why her team calls themselves font developers rather than type designers. 

She talks about the weight of designing letters that billions of people will read, the problem with outdated accessibility guidelines, and how growing up with Latinised Greek type shaped her sense of responsibility. Along the way, she makes the case that knowledge can’t be fast-tracked, that collaboration exposes our blind spots, and that bad kerning still gives the world plenty of stories.

Key takeaways

• Type in 2026 is human. Accessibility and multi-script design are now what clients bring to the table, and Eleni sees both as type doing what it should.
• Bad kerning is a gift. A world of perfect type would be boring. Every misplaced letter on a boat or shopfront carries a story.
• Same typeface, different worlds. One font can look completely different depending on scale and context, so don’t be too prescriptive about how people use it.
• Variable fonts revive old craft. Punch cutters adjusted design and spacing for different sizes. Early digital type lost that, and variable fonts are bringing it back.
• Type can now move and respond. Variable fonts can react to sound, colour, and distance from the screen, opening type up to motion and interaction.
• Design and engineering inform each other. Knowing a typeface’s technical capabilities shapes the design, and design ambition pushes the engineering further.
• Test where the type will live. White text on black looks heavier because of a halo effect. Thorough testing across environments and operating systems shows what a shiny studio screen won’t.
• Know when to stop. Deadlines are real, imperfection is human, and more eyes on the work (colleagues, clients, real users) is how you reach excellence.
• Design for the eyes you serve. Most designers are 20 to 40, but many users are over 40, and eyesight changes.
• There’s no single accessibility fix. Expressive type can create a feeling. Information type needs to be read fast and clearly. Different needs call for different solutions.
• Question outdated guidelines. Many accessibility rules for type date from an era of five system fonts. Put real users in the decision-making.
• Multi-script work is shared work. Native in-house knowledge, outside consultants and clients’ local teams all help shape each script.
• Responsibility means doing the right thing slowly. Greek type was once heavily Latinised. Designers gradually corrected it, and in the process changed people’s habits.
• Hire the person behind the talent. Skill has to be there, but soft skills, teamwork, and a company’s human side make the difference.

Daring Forever. Podcast with Radim Malinic

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Eleni Beveratou: I do think it's a necessity that as designers we need to be as curious as we can. Of course, there's limits of how much we can research things. but I also don't think it's something you go from zero to 100. It's something that you build bit by bit.

and I think we need to allow ourselves to get that time to not get it right from the first time, and to learn and to build our knowledge and to document it or, ensure that, we've learned something, we've put it in practice, we are open to learn something again, or to even be proven wrong from something we've learned in the past.

but it's something that needs to be built as we go.

Radim Malinic: Welcome to Daring Forever, a podcast about being human, wired for wonder, capable of courage, perpetually becoming. It's about the waves that knock us under and the strange, stubborn grace with which we surface. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm an author, creative, and an eternally curious human being on a mission to speak to incredible people whom I call Forever Daring Humans, those in pursuit of an extraordinary life.

Every week, I share an interview that is packed with amazing stories, value, and I can only ask you, how will you dare forever? . This podcast is inspired by my book titled Daring Forever, which is now available

Radim Malinic: My guest today is Eleni Beverato, a type designer and creative director at Dalton Maag, 

 Crafting bespoke typefaces for many of the world's leading brand systems. Eleni returns to the show to look forward, not back. She sees the world in a way most of us might miss, finding stories in everyday badly kerned signage we can see in the world. We talk about why accessibility and creativity belong together, how new technology is reviving forgotten craft, and the responsibility for designing letters for billions of readers.

It's a conversation about curiosity, collaboration, and why knowledge can't be fast-tracked. Here's Eleni Beverato

Radim Malinic_: Eleni, welcome to Daring Forever. It's great to see you back. How are you doing?

Eleni Beveratou: I'm very good. Thank you for having me back. So, I loved our first,podcast, so I'm very happy for, and I'm very curious for the second one actually. So yeah, I'm good. How are you?

Radim Malinic_: I'm grand. It's good to see you. It's really good to see you again. yeah, it was necessary that you came back because as I tell every of my guests, what you do, the way you do it, and how you do it, and who with is important, And especially in a world that you front,

it's a movement of the society. what you can do with your clients influences behavior of so many millions, sometimes even billions of people, and that's no mean task. So let's explain this to our listeners. Eleni Beveratou, who are you? What do you do? Where do we find you?

Eleni Beveratou: So I'm Eleni. I'm creative director at Dalton Maag. and it's a typeface design studio based in London. And we do type, we have our own library, but we also do custom typefaces, and we also specialize on doing typefaces not just Latin but Greek and Cyrillic, Arabic, Thai, and many other writing 

world scripts .

So this is us in a nutshell. 

Radim Malinic_: Daring process. Daring process indeed. as you said, we spoke, I think it was my second season, Mindful Creative. I talked about your origin story, about how you find yourselves on different conferences, and you find yourself in Reading, studying in Reading and in the world of typographers. So I wanna build on that conversation and talk about as we looked back, now we're gonna look forward, because what's it like to be a type designer in the year 2026?

Eleni Beveratou: It's very exciting. I love it, of course. I think what's becoming very, very, prominent right now is, very much... And what, because I'm excited about those topics, I'm very happy that in 2026 there are topics that also our clients bring to the table when we discuss about type.

And it's about accessibility in, reading and using typefaces to make sure that the message is as accessible as possible. but also in, multi-script design. So not just focusing on the Latin, but I think what really excites me is that I see more and more clients generally wanting to do the right thing for each of their, business if it's in a different, 

 country that doesn't use a Latin writing system. And I find that fascinating. So I think those are the exciting bits and the fascinating bits of being a type designer in 2026, that suddenly, of course, we discuss the design because we are designers and this is what, w-wakes me up every morning to, see beautiful type.

But also go a little bit beyond that and look at the accessibility and the multi-script, dimension of it, which I think is very human, and I think what type,should be as well. 

Radim Malinic_: Excellent. Well, I'm gonna ask you about the topics, the client topics that they bring to the table in a second. But you just said, "Type wakes me up every morning." So what's it like for a,typographer or creative director for Type Foundry? What's it like to walk down a street in any London suburb or around the world and how do you see the world potentially differently to other mere mortals?

Eleni Beveratou: I think there are two kinds of us, or sometimes it's the same person but we disassociate from it. I have made a pact that I try when I walk to, not be too judgmental about how type is used out there because, people are people and they're gonna use type the way they want to. sometimes some things really catch my attention and I'll get the picture here and there.

if it's something very pretty or something very unexpected or very unusual, I'll photograph that. But I try personally to not, lose my sleep over that. But I think some type designers can only see type, when walking outside. I try to, switch off a little bit when I walk in the street because otherwise I'd get obsessed with all the bad kerning and all the bad, alignments of type and 

 kerning is usually the worst one.

Radim Malinic_: bad kerning is sometimes quite a gift, isn't it? 'Cause it can be just like, "Really? How?" And, you made it in neon or you made it in like case bound type like, whoa. I always get fascinated because when you see the sparkies, the electricians and the plumbers especially in the past, they had the branding done or branding, the logo and the writing done by sign writers.

And sign writers would normally go from like a coral draw of the 15 or 20 preset fonts and you're like, "Oh my God, it's copper black again," and it's this. And it's just like, how did you get that space in there? It's always fine, fascinating. It's like they shouldn't be trusted to do this because as you said, when you're on your side, you want things to look good.

But my question would be, what would it be like to live in a perfect Lucerne world with perfect type choices?

Eleni Beveratou: It would be boring. I do like the adrenaline that I get when I see bad kerning. it's quite exciting. It makes you think and wonder what? went wrong in the process there, so It creates a lot of stories. I'm from Greece, and, one thing that I noticed very much this summer was all the different boats, from small to big that were in the island that I spent a few days, for holidays, and they all had bad kerning or the, letters had been misplaced, and you think, "My God, all this money put on this boat and zero effort on the kerning."

And you start making stories on why this would have happened or, why no one mentioned it at any point in the process. So I think it's exciting to live in a world with bad kerning, so I wouldn't want this to be ironed out because then, we wouldn't have many stories to talk about.

Radim Malinic_: It sometimes

makes me think of beautifully fitted restaurants and then you read the name. It's like I always try to get the backstories in my head. You know when you said like the bad kerning gives you stories, and in my head it's like, so you settle on this name. Okay. Why did you choose that font and that light, and why is it backlit in blue when you've got all that blue?

And you just feel like that could have been so good, and it's not. And you're right. you gotta see the world differently because I've been wielding this book around for quite a while. "Daring Forever" is written about the neuroscience of the brain. and I really wanted to go potentially beyond those stories of like, how do our brains work, and then why do they work differently?

Because technically the hardware in our skulls is pretty much similar, but it just works in such vastly different ways. We have, 86 billions of neurons with trillions of pathways. And then you realize that we all see the reality in a different way because someone can see what I just described, someone can see your badly kerned sign go in, "This is a masterpiece.

Come on, Jorge. Knock her him down the street. This was amazing." so it's just like, how do you see it through your work that you don't create it just for the high street or for the locals, you create sometimes work for billions of people. I wouldn't say like a challenge, but 

 does the weight of it ever land on your shoulders and make you feel heavy?

Eleni Beveratou: it does. I

think it depends on also how the type is gonna be used. So we have done examples where the type would have been used by a very large,a- amount of people. And this is where you need to be quite careful as well with, how your letters are constructed to not in any way, bring any symbolism that you wouldn't want.

but to also make sure that, especially if you do other writing systems, that you haven't taken decisions based on your Latin, influence and knowledge. So yeah, I think sometimes it really weighs on me, when I know that it's going to reach a very vast audience or being used by a very vast audience.

when it's used by, a small team of very qualified in-house designers in a brand, I feel more comfortable because I feel that we've built it together at the end of the day. we had good conversations with them as our client and, a collaborative process that I know that the product they receive is also gonna be used in a proper manner.

but it always weighs me when I know that it's going to be used by, a wider public. and I think it's fascinating and it's about embracing also that fact that people will see it and will have comments and will use it in a way that maybe you wouldn't have imagined.

So it's important to, when you design, to try to think of all the possible scenari- of course, you can't think of all the possible scenarios, but to try and, mediate as much as, as you can there.

Radim Malinic_: I will tell you a story which, talking about being awake at night. few years ago, after pandemic or during pandemic, started working on quite a big brand. Did the brand guidelines, created all the best possible scenarios, created everything, all the templates. It got applied to six or seven different countries.

You start seeing by within a year and a half like, "Oh, what's happening there? Where did that typeface come from? Okay, this is interesting." And then about a year and a half later, they were like, "Oh, we need to update the brand guidelines." Absolutely, there's a possibility to do so much more. And they're like, "No, no, no.

We want the things that we've created now to be part of the brand guidelines." And I'm like, "Really?" Imagine like someone taking your work and going like, "We're just extending this character, change this kerning values, da, da, da, da, da. Can you make that now official typeface?" Be like, "Are you sure about this?"

And sometimes there's battles that you can choose to battle, and sometimes you just go, "Okay, I'm admitting defeat," because when you talk about bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger teams and, versus small in-house team, it's always so volatile because you just never know what people might do with it.

Because in the words of Margaret Atwood, she said, "When you write, your symphony is black and white, and it's only letters on the paper." So in your way, the possibility of what people can do with type is endless, 

Eleni Beveratou: It's endless, And I'm always very fascinated when I see how people use the same typeface in very different manners. So, we have our typeface in our library that anyone can, license and use. And, sometimes people tag and say, "Oh, I use this typeface." And I always love seeing it in use.

And sometimes the way it's used almost makes it look like a different typeface. if it's massive and super big and taking full bleed on the page versus, very small,spaced out to, create something a little bit more, delicate. Same typeface can have such a different impact, and, that always fascinates me.

And I think it's a nice thing because, I do find typefaces the same way you choose colors, and you can have the same color being used in two different ways or, two different environments, and it's gonna look very different, a purple in your book, might look much, much different than the same purple on another, printed material.

So That really fascinates me. And I think it should be encouraged as well for people to look at it and really try to think of ways to use it. And it's something that, also it's how do you present a typeface to not, kill that creativity from people, right?

Because you want people to take your typeface and use it in any possible way that they want.

and that should be allowed,as long as they don't break it, of course. But I don't wanna be too prescriptive with how a typeface should be used or should be paired because it does depend on the end result and the emotions that you want to create. 

Radim Malinic_: This is my question ' cause you used the word should twice. Should be used, should be paired. You can tell people as much as you want . 

Eleni Beveratou: Yeah. 

Radim Malinic_: They will do whatever they want, especially outside of brand guidelines, So, when you mention that when people tag you and how they use the typefaces, how much of an inspiration or social design data point do you get from this?

do you sometimes spot the imperfections or do you get an idea how to improve stuff? Because yeah, you're right. I mean, sometimes fonts blown up can look like a poetry and sometimes a, a small, four or five point body copy disclaimer can look like a poetry. And sometimes someone can do something so obvious...

That's me done. Sometimes someone, sometimes. so something so obvious that you're like, "How did you get it wrong?" 'Cause it just doesn't look right. sometimes it's, again, use the word sometimes again. occasionally you just see that the constraints just don't work quite right because the kerning, the leading, the size, there is often the midpoint that just looks perfect and some, and occasionally it just does not

Eleni Beveratou: That's true. I know you said it's not easy to, tell people what to do and I don't think in any way, we should, right? but I think there's also a sense of education that can be done, for example, when you go and buy a font, from the website, you can see if it's good for large or small sizes, And maybe there are some elements of very,fractured educational points that can help you to say, "Okay, that typeface actually wouldn't work on a tiny, tiny scale because it's so decorative that it can only work in large sizes." I think a lot of them are also though, flexible to work from large to small sizes.

So I don't see too many wrong usages, I have to say. I think people and, nowadays designers, I think they're quite well-educated. I'm thinking compared to my, time when I was at uni. I see universities really putting an emphasis on type- typefaces and typography and how to use it. And, don't get me wrong, of course, some people might not still know with great confidence how to do it.

But I see an intent to do it better or to learn more or to try to read a bit more. So I think overall, of course, there will always be exceptions, but overall, people are using them properly. and technology has also made it a lot easier to maybe use things a little bit in a more simpler way because it's more baked into the typeface or baked into the software.

So the user... For example, we have some typefaces that slightly change their design depending on the size that you use them, so in the very, very large size, the thin,strokes become super thin to be extremely elegant. But then the same typeface, when You use it in small size, the thin strokes get thicker so that,they can appear either, in a digital environment due to the lack of pixels or, in a very small print.

And that is something that now softwares, if you use a variable font at least, will automatically support. not all softwares, but some of them will automatically pick up the right one. So there's a lot of that is now baked in. and that also prevents maybe usage that might not go as intended.

Radim Malinic_: So you just opened a perfectly geeky door for me because I wanted to talk 

 about a geekery, which is your variable typefaces, because I'm curious. Because things have moved on, right? we didn't always have all of these options, like things have come to us and they are so much better, so much more thought through. You've got ligatures, you've got all sorts of things, as you said, obviously multi-language options.

 that all equates to me more time. So let's talk about variable fonts, and if someone is here by accident hoping to hear something about, the neuroscience of the brain, let's talk about mechanics of typefaces. Because from your world seeing the evolution of typefaces, what are the benefits of variable typefaces?

 how much longer does it take to create them? What is there to look out for? I'm literally smashing 17 different questions in. Tell me more about variable typefaces, please.

Eleni Beveratou: Oh, there are so many benefits to it. I'll try and contract them. I think the first one, which to me I find very, very exciting, is that it brought things that actually did I know you mentioned that, oh, we had a lot of things that didn't exist before. But fun fact, a lot of the things that variable fonts cover now existed in the printing, time.

So what I just described with the optical sizes, back in the days, punch cutters would create, the large size because it was a, an actual object that you would hold. The design was slightly different it was not an accident. It was on purpose. it was created differently than the one in very, very small sizes.

So the concept of optical sizes, for example, exists for many years ago. But when we came into the first digital era, because it was very new technology and all those things were not supported, people had to go with, one typeface, one weight. And then, it's simplified a lot of the things.

And it's only bit by bit that, OpenType features came into place, to have ligatures. So again, ligatures were something that existed in the printing, era and times. And so all those things kind of, are coming back with a better support of technology. And variable fonts are a perfect example of how you can bring back all those elements and all the amazing things.

If you look at, specimens of, like printed specimens of, tactile type, you can see that the spacing for the large size is much tighter than the spacing for a small size. And again, that's something that with variable font, with the optical size you can have. you can also have the spacing, not just the design change.

So those things are, in a way, they used to exist, then we completely lost them and almost forgot them too. Because, if you lose them and whole generations don't, get educated on this or lose touch with that, then you forget about it. I only learned those things, as a type designer.

As a graphic designer, I didn't know any of that because it was just not taught, and now it's coming back. So variable fonts help with that, I will say. that would be the most important element for me. And the other one is I find, of course, it can allow you a lot more expression, a lot more, to be able to create things that also, type was very much before thought for the 2D world or the very static world.

And now, also with motion being such a big part of our lives and also interacting with the world, variable fonts can do that because they can interact to sound, they can interact to colors, they can interact to, how close you are or far you are from the, screen because it's a variable font, so it can vary depending on the variables that you input to it on your web design, for example. 

Radim Malinic_: Wow. 

 what I want to really want know now, which is you've opened another incredible doors, hey, when you've got type in motion, the variable type really helps. 

How are those decisions driven? Are they driven by the designer? Are they driven by, the system, or 

 how are they done? h-how would you describe those?

Eleni Beveratou: so for example, for the typeface to move depending on, let's say, if you want to, I don't know, every time you clap to make the typeface bigger, That's something whoever draws the website, let's imagine it's on our website, It's a programmer that will have to input that. But the typeface, because it's variable...

Or let's say you clap and you want it to go from light to black, so to change the weight, then as you clap, you can say, "I want it to be darker." And the variable font has that access, so it can go from light to, to black very quickly. But it's the designer will have to implement that in the line of code.

but the typeface allows for it

Radim Malinic_: so we talked about type pairing and education, I'm trying to think like from a personal perspective as a, brand designer, that requires an extra level of knowledge to actually know that's possible.

Actually, that requires knowing that exists because, I have been aware of, variable fonts, in Design and Illustrator for a long time, but I have never really dug into them so much that I'd be like, "Oh, this is what I need to do." How do you get that across? is it in terms of curiosity?

Or how would you say that's something that we can learn from?

Eleni Beveratou: I think it's our responsibility as type designers to, talk about it more,of course, designers, we are curious people and we all know that to be good designers, we need to learn more things and to be curious and to, look into different aspects of design, not just the one we are interested.

But there's so much also we can look or learn or see, during, one day and,one lifetime or a career. So, I think it's also the responsibility of the people creating that technology and being part of, these advancements to talk about it. So for example, and for us, it's very important to, do workshops, to do talks, to, talk about it as we do right now, 

Because that's how people learn more and more about. Because yes, of course, all this information is on a website or on, a book. But again, that requires just one kind of attention to see that. And the more you do and the more varied ways you show and explain the things that, your work does, then the more people will, be on board and understand it 

Radim Malinic_: Yeah, 'cause when you think about it, there's so much to hear, see, and read every single day. and just I think at some point you just become a bit snow blind. I used to personally, I used to be obsessed with every new feature in Photoshop for, until let's say 10 years ago, and I just switched off.

I'm like, "Okay, this is something new. There's something notable," and there might be another 30 features you will miss every single year. And that's a little bit more like with the advancements of types, like when you think about it, like what we can do, that's where the niches go really well because like with people in your niches be like, "Okay, we can do all of this."

And then as you said, talking more about it really helps to enlighten people what to do with it. And when you talk about workshops, what is the sort of one of the main takeaways that people can take from your workshop or from your talk? what would they learn that's often the Easter egg that they needed to know and find?

Eleni Beveratou: I try and we try, not just me, like us, Dalton Maag, to give the information that we wish we knew when we were not type designers, so the takeaways are usually about, more on the functionality, the accessibility, and the global reach. and exactly like get a few cues on, okay, if I'm doing this, I should use that.

or if I need to pair this and that, I'm not gonna tell you how to pair things because it depends on what you're gonna do. 

what's important is to know the things they wouldn't know so that, then they can go back to their desk and be able to explore and look at things.

 Obviously, I have a question. I wanna know, when it comes to developing new formats, I think we're looking at things like variable fonts and looking at sort of enhancing things. How much of a development work goes into all of this? Because one thing is to craft, the beautiful typeface, and the other thing is the technicality, is the technical aspect of it all.

Radim Malinic_: So do you have teams that work on both, or is it part of the same team that would be looking at what potentially is in the next feature?

Eleni Beveratou: It's a great question. we actually actively call ourselves font developers and not typeface designers, When I first joined, it was, type design and then type engineering, and As a designer, I didn't know anything about engineering. and Well, it's been now many, many years, but we actively changed that, and the idea is that as you don't just draw type, but you also learn.

And, there is of course training, given for that, but how to engineer it and how to execute it. Because once you also know what the capability, like the technical capabilities of your typeface can be, it can inform your design and vice versa, If you know what are the things that you can do from a design perspective, it could help to push the barriers of,engineering and the functionality.

So I think it's very, very important for those two to coexist. And for us, it's very important that This 

knowledge that we gain,as designers and as, font developers. 

Radim Malinic_: This is fascinating because I would have never really understood what font developers means. I mean, I understand the fonts and understand developers, and they to, to me are totally two different beasts. But you mentioned that obviously the technical capabilities inform what you can do.

Eleni Beveratou: Yes 

Radim Malinic_: Wow. I wanna know more 

Eleni Beveratou: Yeah. 

100%. I can

Radim Malinic_: how, what, what are... Yeah.

Eleni Beveratou: Yeah. ab-absolutely. This is why you're here. I want to know what are, know the features of technical capabilities and what you look for, because this to me, this is all new.

So for example, we have this typeface in our library called Dark Mode, and we developed it because you know when you go on your, phone, for example, and you have an app and you can switch between light and dark mode, so you can see the same typeface black on white or white on black. And actually, if you use the exact same weight and style for both modes, when the typeface is white on a black background, it will actually look darker and denser than if it's the same typeface, black on white.

And that's because there's a halo effect. the black background creates a halo effect on the white letters, so they look chunkier and more compact. So we have this one typeface in our library that is called Dark Mode that for each weight it has two variants. It has the dark mode on and the dark mode off, and it's slightly lighter.

 let's take the bold weight, for example. So we have the bold weight, dark mode on and bold weight dark mode off, and the one that is on is slightly lighter than the bold weight for the other variant. But it's spaced in the same spacing so that when you switch from the two modes, 

You don't get overflows with your text. It remains the same. But the appearance looks more coherent compared to if you were using only one typeface. So that's, for example, a very technical element that drove us to create a brief and to create, a typeface based off of that.

So knowing those capabilities and knowing that this is something that, is used and needed, then can inform your design decisions too. 

Radim Malinic_: I wanna know about the research. this is feeding my geekery. Like, how do you do this? Because obviously subjectively, like you've got people who see, personally, I avoid dark mode as much as I can. I don't like the contrast. I never put my phone in dark mode.

But then someone loves it. to someone, this is just a default mode. How do you measure the halo effect? How do you measure the research and the perception of this? Because no two people see things the same. So how do you get to these decisions and these data points?

Eleni Beveratou: Well, for dark mode, it was purely like us looking at it and, thorough testing can give you a lot of results. Very often we draw something on our beautiful, shiny computer and not test it in the environment it's gonna land or in the different environments. Because if you have, one operating system will show the same interface in a different than another operating system.

And, sometimes we find ourselves focusing on one operating system, the one that our, laptop has or one Weidemann. We forget to look at things in different environments, so we do that very thoroughly. we do like very thorough testing in very different environments because then you can be sure that you've looked as much as you can, things in different environments.

So yes, of course, people are different, but overall, if you know there's a hello effect, minimizing that by making a different design will resolve it for the larger audience. 

Radim Malinic_: I've got an interesting question to follow up on this one because, in the world of creativity, a lot of people would not necessarily know when they're finished. they'll be like, "How far do you go with this?" When do you know you're finished with what you do?

Eleni Beveratou: When our deadline is up you know? 

we have to work against a deadline, of course, right? Because I think as designers we will always see things we can improve. that's a given. But you need to know at what point what you have is already of excellent quality. And yeah, of course you can carry on, but is it changing anything?

does it matter? We are humans at the end of the day, right? and there will be imperfections. as long as the 99.9% of what you have created is excellent, then, you should stop. And of course there's, deadlines, it's a business, you have to make business decisions on how long you can spend on something.

But I think one way to mitigate that is to have a lot of people checking your work. so not just you as a designer, but,if it's a small studio, if it's a one-person designer, ask another designer their opinion or ask the users. I was reading, about that. I found it fascinating that the majority of the designers are between 20 and 40 years old, as like the big bulk.

And very often those people create designs for, users that are above 40. And what's very interesting, at least from the type perspective, well, for any perspective, but at least I was looking at it from the type angle, is that above 40, our eyesight, changes, and it's purely, that's how we're built, right?

We're humans. Exactly. I just turned 40 and I'm ready for the change, but it's important to ask users that will be in the user group And it doesn't have to be complicated, of course, you can do a very, very thorough users research, but just exposing your design to those different, people, you'll get different angles.

if you have a larger team, giving it to your, team to check your work and to find more things. And, sometimes you work on one thing and you might miss the obvious because you're just sticking in one thing, and then you give it to your colleague and they're like, "Spacing is off," or whatever, 

you might have the most beautiful curve on your A, however. So, I think it's important, and this is how we look into that and ensuring that, the work reaches a level of excellence by having different people inputting on that. And of course your client too, right? Because they're gonna be the main users. 

Radim Malinic_: Yeah, I was pointing at myself when you said, it's created for people over 40 and the eyesight does bloody change, 

Eleni Beveratou: That has changed. Well, you were saying the restaurant before, and I was thinking the amount of menus that are designed and people that can maybe afford those restaurants just can't read, 

Radim Malinic_: Do you know what? I remember getting my phone out the other day wherever I was, and just had to put a torch on the menu to even see it. Not because I'm blind, because it was just like someone used a light font with like really, really solid black, so the ink was obviously trapped in, and I was just like, a rookie mistake and we've all made it.

But, you're bringing us to very beginning of the conversation when you said the clients bring different topics to conversations and they're looking more for accessibility. So we've gone halfway through that circle already to find ourselves, okay, the world is changing and we're trying to make it better.

And I remember as a naive young designer, I really liked to use like a faint type, like a 50% black on websites and the light fonts, and people would be like: "I can't read this." And now I'm like of the age of my clients in the past, and I'm like: "Yeah, of course I can't bloody read it."

so accessibility, obviously I can't pick apart of what accessibility's saying. has it changed the world for better or for worse? Because it's meant to change it for better. But in terms of design decisions and creativity, have you found great sort of inspiration in limitations or is it hindering your creativity?

Eleni Beveratou: - it's never hindering the creativity because I'm a strong believer that those two can coexist. when it comes to type, the things you can do for accessibility can resolve a lot of, issues and help with, better reading. I think the one thing that can create a limitation is not on the pairing of accessibility and design, but it's more that very often we're looking for one solution to solve all accessibility.

And I think that's a wrong way to see it because, if we take a building, you need different things if someone is using a wheelchair or if someone,is blind or if someone is young or if someone is old or anything, right? we use different solutions and sometimes with type, I see that there is a bit of a confusion as in the typeface can resolve everything.

And sometimes you need to have something that is very artistic, very designy. If you use the type more as a image, as a feeling and not as a mean of communicating a specific, topic, then you can go wild and you can use expressive designs that, maybe haven't put accessibility at the forefront because it's the same as if you use a very, poppy color.

It's more a feeling you create. accessibility is very key when you need to convey information. So very often the secondary typeface that is gonna be used in long form reading text and in paragraphs and to showcase where an exit is or, things that people need to grasp very, very quickly.

So I think the limitation doesn't come in the combination I think it creates bigger and better opportunities. It's when we try to resolve everything with one solution because that's just, wrong. Different people have different needs, and we've experienced that in many aspects of our lives, so why do the same, I don't know, with a leaflet design or, We should think that maybe different people need a vastly different design and, we should accommodate for that. 

Radim Malinic_: You reminded me of something. I was just in a hotel in Sarajevo a few weeks ago, and I noticed as I was checking out of the room that there was a braille for the room number. I was in room 419, and there was a braille underneath the number in braille. I'm thinking, if I'm blind, if I was blind, how would I even know?

How would I even know there is such thing? I'm not gonna go like, "Oh, there it is." it's just it kind of makes you really think about the usability 'cause when we talk about customer experience, user experience, like there's so many other touch points and so many other layers of the experience that we place with all of this small part of the bigger picture and how do you make it sing and dance in tandem and step that everything's harmoniously created that actually creates the experience that people actually can have, the right experience and not necessarily miss out on something or have a problem to navigate.

Because when you mention one solution doesn't work and, sometimes it's not expected, how much of the outside influences or How much of data points do you need to work into your process?

Eleni Beveratou: I think it depends on what you create, If it's something, let's say, for the general public and accessibility in the general public, then there's already a lot of research, a lot of data, a lot of knowledge. We have a lot of knowledge in-house. A lot of us have done personal research on, accessibility and type.

so there's a lot there. But I think to your point, like with the example with, that, hotel, and I don't know, I'm not qualified to say if that would be something a blind person would be able to locate or not. I guess the most important bit would be to ensure that you have brought the users that are needing that solution in your design process, right?

Because if you just follow a guideline that says, and that's just a hypothetical scenario because I generally don't know what would be more beneficial for someone using braille or not. But if the guideline says every text need to be,also in braille, maybe that is actually not helping a blind or maybe it is, I don't know.

But it's important to... I know a lot of the guidelines with type and accessibility are very outdated. they actually are promoting wrong solutions for the users in need. And very often, at the time that they were created, they were trying to establish something, a step ahead to start thinking of things.

But we've moved a lot a long way since and we need to ensuring that our source of truth is actually benefiting the end users. And it's something that also needs to be constantly updated because it could be that,maybe people don't use a certain mean anymore.

I think ensuring that the users are part of your decision maker, if it's something that doesn't follow the general public, design knowledge that is well consolidated so far, is very key for me. But also be ready to not just follow a black and white printed guideline from 20 years ago.

be open that maybe things are different today, and maybe users need different things because we consume content in different manners 

Radim Malinic_: Absolutely. 

Eleni Beveratou: Yeah. Or have different means as well. with type, for example, when you look at those. guidelines, they only propose two typefaces.

And That's because it's from the time when, we had the first laptops that had five options in terms of fonts. Like we now have so many more, and some of them are much more accessible as well, right? 

Radim Malinic_: Makes you think

of IKEA catalog used to be in Avant Garde, and it was beautiful, bold, chunky type, and they're like, "Are we gonna change to Verdana?" Why? Because it's a system font. It's like, fellas. But that's another story. I'm gonna go back to your two words, one solution, and at this time actually I'm gonna spin it towards multi-language options, like the different languages, different types of characters.

I went to the client, they're trying to rebrand a company that was mul- multinational, and they were like, "Oh, how are you gonna do the, rollout in Japan?" I was like, "Well, clearly with the Japanese team," like mostly with people on the ground. 'Cause you can't create a global solution from an office in London without even knowing what everything, how things work.

in your case, how much of an input goes from multinationals? Do you have people on your team that already obviously in that language? Do you do any cultural excavation? Does the client, bring topics to a conversation what they want? Let's talk about multinational stuff, because that's fascinating.

Because your work that you guys did for Airbnb, the way it renders in different languages is absolute poetry. like everything's so consistent and beautiful. So I'm just really curious about that.

Eleni Beveratou: It's a combination of all the above. So, our studio is made by, 40, 47, I think we are now, and, people and 30 of them are designers. And we are from very different countries and different backgrounds. For example, I'm Greek, so I know the Greek writing system. So we already have a lot of, in-house knowledge because we are a very, international company, which is fantastic.

but we also bring external consultancy, to our projects a typeface is a system, so it's also important to ensure that.

the Greek will behave the same way as the Latin, you need actually those two writing systems need to work together in one typeface.

But, yeah, we develop them in-house. We have a lot of knowledge in-house because we very often have, people from those, countries that use those writing systems. but we bring also external consultants to our projects. And of course, when we work with clients, if they are, if they have, an office in Japan, we will ensure that they bring that team also as part of the,judging process.

But they do it themselves as well. And I think this is where, and back to my very first point, I think nowadays overall, we are a lot more aware that not one person knows everything, and you need to involve the right people at the right stages. And our clients do that very well of, ensuring that the team in Japan will be very much, co-creating and giving feedback and collaborating with,with us to, to, for the end result.

So it's a combination of all the above and constant learning, which is fascinating. 

Radim Malinic_: what is the responsibility like to getting it right in different languages? Because Greek, obviously you know English, obviously you recognize some of the other characters, but when it comes to a different culture or a different team, obviously you've got, let's say, a Japanese team might be 10 people, but they are not the full nation.

I'm not saying you're creating something for everyone to love endlessly, but do you feel the element of unknown that you can't verify sometimes being, exciting or, a little bit scary?

Eleni Beveratou: It's a huge responsibility and I'll give you an example with Greek because I'm very, very familiar with it. in Greece, when I was growing up, we got exposed to very Latinized typefaces, like extremely Latinized. so we have a character that looks like the Latin lowercase N, but it's actually very different.

but it has some similarities. But when I was growing up, those typefaces were using the N, like the Latin N in it instead of the Greek eta, which is so wrong. but my whole generation was brought up considering this to be the norm. So how do you handle it as a designer there? do You say, "I will actually, go with what, people are used to see, even if it's wrong," or is it my responsibility to bring it back in?

And of course, the answer depends. It depends on the countries, it depends on the, writing systems, it depends on the history of the evolution and how it was, implemented or perceived. in the case of Greek, for example, I was very pleasantly surprised because I'm very passionate about this one.

I almost don't see this Latinization anymore because more and more type designers decided to do the right thing and slowly change behaviors that, if you would have asked me as a user, back then, I would have picked up something that would actually alienate my writing system.

So it's, a very complex topic, and I can only speak from my cultural background there. And I think, for example, for the case of Greece and the Greek writing system, I'm very happy to see that the Latinization is now a bit over. Like we, we don't do it anymore And again, gradually it came back and now both can even coexist. maybe people won't notice the difference, but it's a huge responsibility and, there's gonna be mistakes along the way, for sure. as long as every time you do your best and you do your research to, the best of what's given to you,that's how we can move as designers as well, 

Radim Malinic_: You used the word research a few times, and how much of it is done by the individual person and how much of it is done by you as a creative director? it's almost like a shared data because, for example, when you look at cancer charities, if all of them talked to each other around the world, we could've been a little bit further ahead.

Is there a sort of general place where you go for findings? is there a place that goes beyond just a pretty typeface and tells you more about the optimization, the usability, and all of that stuff, kind of the movement? How much of it do-- does it require your curiosity, and how much of it is a necessity of you that you have to go and find it?

Eleni Beveratou: It's definitely a necessity. And,I wonder if a lot of it?

comes from curiosity as well. For example, one thing that fascinates me at Dalton Maag is that we are a lot of different people from very different backgrounds, and, when we draw something and we, curious about, oh, how do you handle the quotes in French, for example.

you can, pop a question and different people will chime in and because the sources of knowledge can be endless, in terms of how do you acquire it. But because it's a very unique space we have a lot of people that I can reach out instantly, very quickly to 47 people and get their opinions and their findings and their knowledge.

I think it's, very unique and very special. But I do think it's a necessity that as designers we need to be as curious as we can. Of course, there's limits of how much we can research things. but I also don't think it's something you go from zero to 100. It's something that you build bit by bit.

and I think we need to allow ourselves to get that time to not get it right from the first time, and to learn and to build our knowledge and to document it or, ensure that, we've learned something, we've put it in practice, we are open to learn something again, or to even be proven wrong from something we've learned in the past.

but it's something that needs to be built as we go. I don't think you can say, "Oh, I know nothing about Greek, and I'm gonna learn everything in half an hour." And I think it's important... there's a lot of, things out there that tell you all the five ways to learn that, the 10 things to do this, the two days to become, I don't know, the...

A type designer. We can't fast-track, knowledge. I think it's something that we need to build

Radim Malinic_: Yeah. This is absolutely like when you talk about the fact that you grow as a human, you understand things differently because when you walk down that street and you see the bad kerning, you would have missed it 20 years ago. Oh, yeah. That would-- 20 years ago, that would have looked absolutely fine. It's 'cause it's the cumulative knowledge of what we learn because get to the position where you're at you got there by doing and doing by learning and observing and putting things all together.

So that's an interesting one because, those things wouldn't have made sense that long time ago. what was the one thing that you learned about yourself over the last many years doing this job that, you didn't think you would potentially learn about yourself?

Eleni Beveratou: Ooh. 

So many things I've learned. 

 I think a lot of it is with the collaboration with people and, learning to be open to all the different, point of views and, see where someone is coming from with a comment and, ensuring that there's a space that allows for that.

It's something that I've learned a lot about myself, and I had to adjust it,And I'm very happy that I was exposed to, my blind spots to this. So I think that's the beauty of collaborating. I cannot stress enough how collaboration for me is key to learn things and to improve yourself as a team, as a society, going back to your very first topic, And I think one thing that's definitely missing nowadays is discussing things, and exchanging knowledge, exchanging opinions. I think the more you do of that, the more you'll see things about yourself that you need to learn

Radim Malinic_: I think I would echo that. If I've learned one thing about myself, it's the ability just to think that every idea I've got is wrong idea. It's a good idea in my opinion, but I'm prepared that it's not the right idea for what I'm trying to do, and that's liberating

Eleni Beveratou: Yeah. It doesn't mean being indecisive, right? you still need to make a decision at some point, but it's about being open that your idea might not be the best idea. 

Radim Malinic_: Yeah, 'cause it could easily be like that. It's not indecisive also is like an obviously another layer on top, but you could happily go with your idea, but you will almost want to be proven wrong that there's somebody else who can make it, we can improve it. I've got a question for you, and that's actually inspired by my conversation with Nils Leonard from Uncommon.

And he was talking about the fact of what they do, what they create, and he says, he was talking about them, them, them. We do it for them. And I'm thinking, "You do it for clients." He was like, "No, no, no. We create work to attract the best talent to come and work for us." What do you guys do to attract the best talent for Dalton Maag and like what is it to look out for?

Because there's never been more independent foundries, people have tried to proven the fact that you can make a job out of, you can make a business out of being independent, and some people are doing incredible jobs, and you realize okay, this is a small shop, or two, three people are doing incredible work, and then you've got bigger responsibilities with what you do, so obviously you can't do it with three people.

But for what you like, for talent that you look for and talent that you employ, what do you want them to know? What do you want them to be aware of? Or what do you look for when you employ people? what do you look for when you look for fresh talent?

Eleni Beveratou: So many things. I mean, of course, the talent is and the ability to do a typeface is, the skill. It has to be there, because it's very, very important. I think the soft kill- skills are also very, very important when look at hiring people. can this person be a good team player?

because, it's a collaboration. it's a group effort. It's not a studio with a one person out there. I think for me, at least, what I, look is a lot the soft skills. On top of course, the work needs to speak for itself. But there is so much talent. there is a lot of talent out there, right?

what's gone to me, what makes someone unique is the person, behind that talent. And I think for me, that can be a very, very important, decision-making factor in the hire. but of course, we're also different people in that, process, again, because different people will look at different things.

but I think to your point, before, I don't know if that was your question, but that's what came up to my head when you were starting formulating your question. I think it's also important that, people see the people behind a company and behind the work. Because the work speaks for itself, of course, but, who is behind this work, who has done this work is also a very important, matter. And not an individual per se, but a way of thinking of a company. Like, how is that company operating from the more human side? 

Radim Malinic_: I think you really hit on something there because so many foundries I've been admiring for decades, I've got no idea who's behind them. there's this and there's that. I was for a while of that cynical nature that you look, you blink and you miss and, there's another 15 typefaces that look exactly the same.

Like some of the nuances between some of the geo sans and some of the display fonts are so minimal. You're like, "Why did we need all of this? Is this because of, because just you need an IP of this?" But 

in that mindset that everything that's created is created for a reason. The world always needs something that sort of challenges the status quo, and you're right, I don't always know the people behind it, behind typefaces.

And the person I know, let's say one of the people I know who creates the typefaces, which is Aleš Kepanović from Silverstag, you know that's his work. He's behind it. it's very micro foundry, and that makes a connection because when you were talking about soft skills, I was thinking about empathy.

the word that came to me first was empathy. how much of a connection between the user and the work that you create is there? Because I think that's just a whole 'nother conversation we can have about just that level of like there's mechanics, there's connection, there's whole other emotion behind it, and I think it's been proven that people can have a, fight online about a typeface.

there's so many things that we can create reaction. 

Eleni Beveratou: Please don't fight over Thai face. There are more 

Radim Malinic_: not. But Lenny,

it's always so fascinating to talk to you on record and obviously in a social setting to talk about what you do because it's fascinating world. Like it can be so black and white, it can be so simple if you take a really simple view of it. But the way you see that world is always fascinating, and I'm really looking forward to our next conversation, so thank you.

Eleni Beveratou: Well, thank you for having me. That was, lovely as always. I always love the, very good questions that go beyond the, you know, the obvious, and I think it's important. That's what we need nowadays, with the current state of, technology and tools that we have, we need to go a little bit deeper than the obvious. so thank you.

for the best questions. 

Radim Malinic_: You're most welcome. Thank you. Thank you for answering 

Eleni Beveratou: Bye-bye. 

Radim: Hey, thank you for joining me on this episode of Daring Forever Podcast. As always, I'd love to know your thoughts, questions, and even suggestions, so please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinic. Thank you for being here, and I hope to catch you on the next episode