johnson banks: phonetikana

driven by trips to japan and continual frustration at being unable to read the language, michael johnson and his team at johnson banks have been trying to design a katakana typeface that has english phonetic sounds embedded: ‘phonetikana’.

characters from the phonetikana typeface

for example, UNIQLO in japanese is pronounced ‘yoo nee koo roh’ above are the four characters in phonetikana.

this is how ‘michael’ would look in the typeface.

‘big apple’

‘cheese’

‘doki doki’ (japanese for the ‘sound of my beating heart’)

‘baa + moo’

‘big in japan’

‘nee-koh’ – japanese for ‘smile’

‘koo-roo’ – japanese for the sound of something spinning