Ritmo Hand began with an old vinyl record from my dad’s band, Hielo Ardiente, in El Salvador. The bubbly RITMO ARDIENTE lettering on that sleeve is where this typeface starts.
Those two words gave me the first letters. I drew the remaining capitals from what they already knew, then the lowercase, the numbers, the accents and the punctuation in the same bubbly hand — smooth, continuous curves, a little asymmetry, nothing sloppy.
Its rounded forms and gentle irregularities keep that hand-drawn spirit alive. It’s a small tribute to my dad and his band, and a typeface for anything that needs to feel warm and a little loud.