Daniel Irizarry's Between Worlds Typography Project Documents Puerto Rican Diaspora

Brooklyn-based designer Daniel Irizarry has created Between Worlds, a bilingual typographic project exploring the Puerto Rican diaspora through three display typefaces. The work treats type as cultural infrastructure rather than mere decoration, with each font rooted in different facets of Puerto Rican and Puerto Rican-American experience. Irizarry, Designer & Creative Director at Athletics, developed Borinqueneers after discovering three of his mother's uncles served in the 65th Infantry Regiment, connecting personal history to broader military narratives. The Piragua typeface interrogates consumer culture and storefront aesthetics, while Callejón preserves everyday Puerto Rican vernacular phrases. Irizarry describes the project as ongoing, positioning typography closer to anthropology than decoration—a method of preservation, interpretation, and quiet resistance. The designer acknowledges tensions between commercial branding work and cultural critique, noting he seeks to expand what constitutes 'good' design while maintaining personal values. Through archival research and personal reflection, Irizarry constructs a visual language that holds contradictions between island and mainland, pride and displacement, visibility and erasure. The project raises questions about type designers' responsibility in maintaining cultural specificity as design systems standardize globally.