I released Barrista on November 21, 2005. The name was meant to tie in with coffee culture, though the misspelling was an accident. I had considered fixing it but left it as it was. The typeface was conceived to reflect the early 2000s coffee shop aesthetic, with swirly, steam-like forms that recalled chalkboard menus and café signage of the time.

Barrista is an unconnected script. I drew the letters on a tablet inside FontLab, using a simple modulated stroke, then manually cleaned and adjusted the curves. The result was clunky but consistent, which suited the relaxed, amateur look I wanted. To keep it from feeling repetitive, I added OpenType ligatures so that common letter combinations would automatically vary.

The font didn’t gain much attention. Its most notable use was on my mother’s website, where she applied it with an embossed copper effect. In June 2021, I updated the design by cleaning up outdated elements, adjusting characters for better compatibility, increasing the character size by about 10 percent, and expanding technical support. There have been no further revisions, and Barrista has always been free for commercial use.