I have always been very interested in typography and type design and I have long harbored a desire to create something that could benefit my home country Zimbabwe, Afrika and the rest of the world through creativity. I imagine what my language might have looked like if it weren't for the Latin or Roman alphabet. During my childhood, I often encountered individuals who belittled my native language, chiShona. My educational experience at an all-girls, private Catholic school reinforced the notion that speaking English was socially desirable, and those who spoke their native language were subject to ridicule and derogatory labels such as gwash or ghetto. Despite this, I found great joy in speaking my mother tongue, which is widely spoken in my urban community.

The chiShona written language is plagued by a number of problems, such as the lack of a consistent way of spelling words across all dialects. The current orthography does not accurately represent the spoken form of the language, making it difficult for writers and speakers to convey their ideas effectively. In this publication I explore typography of a Zimbabwean language and reimagine what chiShona may have looked like if it had not been colonised. As a speaker of chiShona, my mother tongue, I am fascinated by the possibility of developing a written language for my language and finding effective methods of teaching it. 

This was done with the help of collaborators Rutendo Shannon Goneso and Pule kaJanolintji.