Of the 7000+ human languages in the world, between 50–100 are supported digitally, with 10 languages making up 82% of all internet content.

Manuel López Rocha's Tuki is a type design project aimed at supporting the writing of Mixe languages. It constitutes the first typeface family to incorporate glyphs from the Epi-Olmec, considered one of the earliest scripts in the Americas. Tuki is grounded in extensive linguistic, historical, and documentary research focused on reinterpreting a writing system that had fallen out of use. Today, this system is being reappropriated by the Mixe people as part of broader efforts to reclaim and sustain their cultural and historical heritage, making it clear that writing in the region existed prior to the adoption of the Latin alphabet.

This booklet is part of series that highlights the work of designers who are creating digital typefaces for languages or writing systems that are underrepresented or entirely unsupported within current operating systems, keyboards, and digital technologies at large. The process for developing such typefaces requires intensive research, often with ongoing community collaboration and feedback. By providing a digital application for these languages, the type designers featured in this series contribute to the longevity of a language, and in turn, its cultural knowledges, oral histories, and ways of thinking. The project is made in partnership with SILICON (the Stanford Initiative on Language Inclusion and Conservation in Old and New Media).

Designed by Manuel López Rocha

Published by Sming Sming Books, 2026
Printed in an edition of 200 copies

Softcover, saddle-stitch binding, 28 pages, Risograph, 5 × 8 inches