Hello, we are Mining Raw Letters – a studio for type, design and aesthetic research. Founded in Switzerland in 2025 by New Zealand type designer Nell May and German researcher and developer Kevin Kuhn, we work where letterforms, language, research and code meet. We love to build custom type systems, digital archives and visual identities through deep research and exploratory frameworks.

We’re always interested in new projects, collaborations, saying hi…. And, if you’d like to be a beta tester for our upcoming arcade-style type specimen *game* then please get in touch!

Mining Raw Letters
Nell May and Kevin Kuhn
Chemin du Pre de la Tour 4
1009 Pully, Switzerland

studio@miningrawletters.com
+41 78 307 66 07
LinkedIn Instagram

Bios:

Originally from Wellington, Nell May is a designer specialised in type and typographic research. She is a member of the antipodean typographic collective Counter Forms and she holds a Master of Type Design from Ecal, Lausanne, Switzerland as well as a Master of Fine Arts, from Elam School of Fine Arts, Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Kevin Kuhn grew up in Ulm, Germany. He holds a Master of Philosophy from Tübingen and a PhD on Aesthetic Communication and Writing Processes from University of Hildesheim, where he also taught Creative Writing and Literary Studies. His research and novels explore the intersection of literature and digital culture – how current technologies and social media ecosystems shape identities in digital and AI-driven environments.

Selected texts:

The Visual World of Anthroposophy: Dynamic Lettering, Typefaces and Language, Nell May and Kevin Kuhn, Source Type, Zurich, 2025.
A Quantum Physicist’s View’s on Type: a conversation with CW Gardiner on LaTeX and mathematical typesetting, Nell May, Ecal Stories, Lausanne, 2025.
Insects in the Night: a nocturnal journey through light-on-dark type, Nell May, The National Grid, Issue 9, Christchurch, 2025.
Reporter Number 5, Nell May, Correspondence IV, edited by Anna Welham, The Physics Room, 2025.
Before the Entrance to Hell: The Experience of Pain in Kafka’s Life and Work, Kevin Kuhn, 2024. PDF on request.
Die Ästhetik des Romanentwurfs, Kevin Kuhn, Zur Genealogie des Schreibens, hg. v. Davide Giuriato, Martin Stingelin und Sandro Zanetti, Bd. 26, Brill: Fink, Paderborn 2020.
Novels by Kevin Kuhn: Hikikomori, Bloomsbury Berlin Verlag 2012 and Liv, Piper, 2017.

This website is typeset in Waitomo Mono Black, a cut of Nell’s text font family which will be released with Counter Forms.

Sneak peek: a *game* type specimen of our font School Pixel. Drillbot must mine raw letters to continue its underground adventures… Beta version available soon!

Waitomo font family by Nell May, Mining Raw Letters

Waitomo font family by Nell May, upcoming release at Counter Forms.

The Visual World of Anthroposophy: Dynamic Lettering, Typefaces and Language, 2025. A deep typographic research journey, read now on Source Type.

Vinyl design by Nell May for The Last Word by Richard Frater, Mining Raw Letters

Vinyl design for The Last Word, released for artist Richard Frater’s exhibition Nicky’s Conversion, Michael Lett gallery, 2025.

Reversed Slab ornamental titling font by Nell May, Mining Raw Letters

Reversed Slab, an ornamental titling font.

Nola typeface specimen by Nell May, Mining Raw Letters

Nola typeface detail by Nell May, Mining Raw Letters

Reconfigured in 2026, Nola is a font inspired by the poetic lettering of New Zealand-born architect and MIT professor Maurice K Smith, 1926-2020.

Childhood typeface WIP by Nell May, Mining Raw Letters

WIP Childhood font.

Eveningness exhibition graphics by Nell May, Mining Raw Letters

Exhibition graphics using a WIP shadow wood type font for Sonya Lacey’s Eveningness, Whangārei Art Museum, 2026.

Night Editor typeface installation by Nell May at Ecal, Mining Raw Letters

Night Editor installation, Ecal, 2024.