Microsoft Unlocked:

Pulaar, a language of the Fulani people of West Africa, is spoken by millions, but until recently had no alphabet. That meant the Fulani people’s poems, songs, letters and emails were all written in other alphabets—slowly chipping away at the culture, ideas and history that shaped Pulaar.

Two brothers, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry, set out to help preserve the Fulani culture by inventing an alphabet: ADLaM, which stands for “the alphabet that protects a people from vanishing.” But it only existed in a handwritten form, making it useless in the digital world.

In partnership with the Barry brothers and typeface experts, we revised the letterforms of the alphabet creating a new and optimized version, which was inspired by Fulani visual culture, in order to improve its performance and usage across digital platforms.

Once optimized, we made the new version of the alphabet accessible for everything from education to business, ensuring the language and culture ADLaM represents lives on for generations.