Typeface
Laisen Casual
- Classification
- Script
- Styles
- Regular
- Scripts
- Latin, Thai
The project
Laisen Casual is the handwriting style of Laisen, a Thai-Latin display family inspired by the vernacular typography of Bangkok, where handwriting is often used for handmade signs. It is designed to work across signage, posters, advertisements, and other display contexts, drawing on marker signwriting that is fast, expressive, and shaped by the human hand.
Lively and personal, Laisen Casual is an homage to the unrestrained typography found in Bangkok's streetscape, built to carry the same disconnected, speed-driven character across both its Thai and Latin letterforms.
Concept
The main inspiration is handwritten signs commonly found on Bangkok's streets, photographed by Tejapaibul as part of her thesis research on the city's vernacular typography, alongside a secondary reference to Thai shop signs in a monoline casual script style, with a looser classification distinguishing looped from loopless forms.
Process
Tejapaibul's process moved from handwriting to sketching to chisel-tip marker drawing, adding speed to casual writing to find the typeface's italic angle, loop size, and contrast. From these speed-writing tests came a defining feature (disconnected stroke endings) that carries through the finished typeface, along with tight spacing and compact letterforms inspired by signs that pack a lot of information into small spaces. She then moved constantly between marker tests, pencil sketches, and digitized forms checked in the context of surrounding letters, exploring curved versus angular Thai loop forms and testing several shapes of the Thai 'oAng' to find a good partner for the Latin 'o'. The grant would help her finish the typeface to commercial standards, expand the character set into Latin-1 with diacritics, and hire a font engineer familiar with Thai script.
About Mim
Pornpiya (Mim) Tejapaibul is a type and graphic designer from Bangkok, Thailand, who recently graduated from ECAL with a master's degree in type design. Her practice is informed by an interest in vernacular typography and multiscript typefaces, drawing on existing archives and collections to reflect on and respond to contemporary culture. Her work centers on the Thai script, taking inspiration from the vernacular typography and urban planning of Bangkok.
Her diploma typeface, Laisen, and her master's thesis, Signs & Sentiment: Encountering Bangkok's Vernacular Typography, grew out of a collection of photographs and writings exploring how everyday typography carries cultural and emotional value. As a bilingual designer, she is interested in typefaces that challenge Latin conventions by bringing Thai-inspired forms into the Latin letters. She wants to keep contributing new, unconventional Thai typefaces and to continue challenging the Latinization of Southeast Asian scripts for an international audience.