Skip to Content

Mia Cinelli: Fayette Typeface Awarded

Detail of Fayette Mia Cinelli
Mia Cinelli’s Fayette took the Graphis Silver Award for Typeface Design. 

Fayette, a typeface created by Stamps alumna Mia Cinelli (MFA 14), was recently awarded a Graphis Silver Award for Typeface Design and was published in Graphis Typography 4.” 
Cinelli, an Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Design at the University of Kentucky School of Art Visual Studies, earned her bachelor’s degree in graphic communication from Northern Michigan University and a master’s degree in art and design from the University of Michigan’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design.

Graphis, founded by renowned designer Walter Herdeg in 1944, is an international publisher on books on visual communication and design, and produces themed annuals on topics such as advertising, typography, branding and poster design. To be featured in a Graphis annual is an honor in the discipline of design. This international competition and publication was juried by high-profile, award-winning typeface designers: Akira Kobayashi (Monotype), Nadine Chahine (Linotype) and Dan Rhatigan (Adobe Typekit).

Fayette is an original script digital typeface loosely based on the handwriting of an anonymous former resident of Fayette, a ghost town located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As a mining boomtown, workers in Fayette smelted iron ore from 1867 – 1891, when it proved unprofitable the town was abandoned. With an emphasis on swiftness, elegance and respect for historic penmanship, Fayette is a typeface which hopes to give a voice to a place and time which no longer exists, transporting a small slice of the past into the present.

Award-winning Typeface Fayette Connected to Kentucky, Michigan | University of Kentucky News