I introduced Manbow on October 29, 2014. It began with a sketch of a ‘B’ featuring a decorative loop, which reminded me of clever loop treatments I had seen in thin strokes of Art Deco typefaces. That small detail set the direction, and I developed the rest of the alphabet into a geometric display face with strong Art Deco influences.

At first, I wasn’t convinced the design stood apart from existing Art Deco fonts. To give it distinction, I introduced stripes that dictated the proportions of the thick strokes. Manbow grew into a layered system with solid, transparent, striped, polka-dot, and screen-patterned variations. Some of these could be used as standalone styles, while others were intended for layered, multicolor compositions. I also designed versions that combined outline and fill textures so that users could mix approaches; in some cases, even the standalone textures could be layered on top of combined styles to create more complex effects.

The name comes from Space Manbow, a horizontally scrolling shooter released by Konami in 1989. There is no thematic link between the game and the font—I simply liked the sound of the name and thought it fit. Manbow was always meant as a display face, and I never saw it used in notable projects. It was first released with a free commercial-use license; in April 2024, I placed it into the public domain.