Ògún, a CastleType Original, was inspired by an Egyptian-style Russian block alphabet (original designer unknown) that caught my eye in the book, ABZ: More Alphabets and Other Signs. It was interesting to start with Cyrillic letters and then create Latin letters based on them, instead of my usual method of doing Latin first.

Ògún was formerly named ‘Azbuka’ (Russian for ‘alphabet’) in acknowledgment of the design’s origins. However, in order to avoid confusion with another foundry’s font by that name, I decided to rename it after the Yorùbá warrior deity, Ògún, to represent the strength, straight-forwardness, and virility of this design.