Racing to Write

Three designers and a racecar driver walk into an airplane hangar... no, that’s not the start of a joke but the beginning of an ambitious project to develop a typeface inspired by the iQ, Toyota’s new “microcar” that seats four and occupies a mere 118 inches. With the help of a seasoned driver, an overhead camera, and the iQ’s incredibly tiny turning radius, designers Pierre Smeets and Damien Aresta collaborated with software developer Zach Lieberman to record and map the iQ as its color-coded wheels traced letters and numbers on the floor of a vast hangar. The result is iQ Agility, a playful typeface that looks inspired by handwritten letters from our sixth-grade French pen pal. The font is now available for free download, but those stateside will have to wait a little longer for the car itself: Currently, the iQ is only available for purchase in Japan and Europe.