Projects / Quirida Floripa

A dingbats font that tells the story of a city through icons. Developed as the final project for the Graphic Design program at UNIVALI.

Quirida Floripa

Quirida Floripa was created with the goal of collecting, rescuing, and visually documenting the rich cultural heritage of Florianópolis.

The project emerged from the observation that, despite the city's diversity, many of its cultural symbols were underrepresented in design, especially in formats that allow for public access and creative use.

To address this, we chose to develop a dingbats typeface: a playful, accessible format that encourages local creators to engage with their city’s identity.

How do you preserve the memory of a place in a way that’s functional, emotional, and easy to use?

Challenge

Our challenge was to translate the essence of Florianópolis into a visual language. The solution needed to be cohesive, respectful of local culture, and versatile enough to be used in both personal and commercial projects. We researched symbols related to architecture, everyday life, landscapes, and folklore — aiming to avoid clichés and capture multiple perspectives of the city.

Process

We Used Adobe Illustrator and converted these icons into a usable font with Fontself. Each character represents a different aspect of Florianópolis: from local architecture (such as Mercado Público and Antiga Alfândega) to natural landmarks (Ilha do Campeche, Morro do Cambirela) and cultural icons (Boi de Mamão, Rendeiras).

The result is a complete alphabet — from Aa to Zz — where each glyph tells a unique story about the island.

Over 20 icons were illustrated and vectorized

Results

Quirida Floripa is available for free download and has been used in various projects across the region

The typeface encourages the appreciation of lesser-known aspects of the city while serving as a design tool for education, branding, and cultural promotion. Its visual and emotional resonance with the people of Florianópolis was recognized with awards in major design competitions.