The brief was playful but precise: alter typography behavior while keeping the familiar academic look.
Academic writing systems often reward length, which means typography can influence outcomes in hidden ways. The challenge was to create a type intervention that changes document behavior without breaking visual familiarity. It had to feel almost invisible in use, yet conceptually sharp once revealed.
I modified David Libre through controlled width and side-bearing adjustments so lines expand subtly in real writing contexts. The implementation focused on preserving tone and rhythm so the font still feels academically credible. The result is a behavioral shift that appears minor per line but accumulates meaningfully at document scale.
The critical decision was preserving trust at the surface while changing performance underneath. That tension allows the project to remain usable, humorous, and critical at once. It exposes how formal systems can be negotiated through tiny technical decisions.