“Baybayin” wood type revived after a Chinese xylography from 1593

Article written by Delia, 416 words, 2 minutes to read

In the summer of 2025 we met Sarah Kemle from @slikcreative.studio located in Munich, Germany through the Dutch printer Thomas Gravemaker @thomasgravemaker for a collaboration on the wood type production of the BayBayin typeface.

In the first phase, we sent Sarah some wood type samples that met all the design and manufacturing requirements and after she did a printing proofing together we decided the following: how close the characters and diacritics should be (kerning), the German type height of 23.56 mm and that the wood type should have a size of 10 cicero.

The challenge was the manual cutting with the electric saw for the characters that contained diacritics, similar to the one in the project: Slovak Wood Type with Diacritics

Sarah tells us the following about her project:

“I’m excited to connect with you both. I have been working on the Baybayin typeface since 2023, as part of my capstone project for “Design im Handwerk” at the Academy of Design, Chamber of Crafts in Munich. It started with calligraphy and has evolved into a working font. What makes this project historically significant is that Baybayin was never printed using movable type. There is just one book containing its characters the “Doctrina Christiana”, printed using xylography by the Chinese in 1593. That’s why I’m especially interested in the opportunity to create the first Baybayin wood type fonts.”

When Thomas Gravemaker @thomasgravemaker contacted us, he told us the following:

“Sarah has been working over the last few years on a type design of a script that was used before the Spanish conquered the Philippines and eradicated the original ways of writing. Last year we printed from polymer plates on the Grafix proof press, now she would like to get her typeface made in wood.”

I also want to say something about this project from behind the scenes.

During the conversion of the CAD design to CAM, after the router’s cutting there is the final step in which each piece passes through my hands to be cut at the sharp corners with a chisel, if necessary.

These are moments in which my eyes and hands follow in detail every undulation, modulation, vibration – each graceful curve of these organic wood type characters inspired by nature, in harmony with humanity, which were made at the end of the Middle Ages!!! And I really enjoyed doing this!