Source: Johnson Witehira
(...) Starting with the observation that there are no authentic Māori typefaces, designed by Māori for Māori communities, Witehira traces the kaupapa Māori design process in which Māori cosmo-genealogy is transformed into structural characteristics of the Whakarare typeface. In Māori history, the world was created when the children of Ranginui (sky-father) and Papatūānuku (earth-mother), forcibly push their parents apart.
(...) While the Whakarare typeface is designed to be Māori-centric, the authors demonstrate how the problem of designing forms that express the concept of compression and crushing, as a status immediately preceding an explosive expansion, is not specific to the Māori culture. Every designer in the world would face the same design challenge in a completely different context. The ability to design a form capable of generating that perception in the observer is not a trivial or easy task. On the contrary, its solution requires a very advanced knowledge of the psychology of perception and therefore has a universal, rather than local, significance.