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 writer 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….

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 holds an MA in Type Design from Ecal, Lausanne, Switzerland as well as an MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand. Nell is a member of the antipodean typographic collective Counter Forms.

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. He has developed a 12-module online creative writing course for the Zeit Akademie, which will be released from July 2026.

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.

Copyright 2026 Mining Raw Letters