The Language of the Black Parade

    Soon after being contacted by Gerard Way to work on the 2025 Long Live the Black Parade tour, I thought it might be a good idea to start writing down notes in the event that I decided to compose an article on how the typeface came together. Not really knowing if I’d actually get it done—or have enough interesting info to even justify an article—I just scribbled thoughts and dates on sticky notes which were soon lost to the chaos of my studio. I tried my best to find them all (and I was semi-successful) when the time came to write this.

     In August of 2024, I received an email from Gerard asking me if I was up to design a font for the following year’s My Chemical Romance tour. Gerard and I have worked together since the beginning of The Umbrella Academy comic books published at Dark Horse (Wikipedia tells me that was back in 2007). We’ve always gotten along really well. We’re approximately the same age, and we’re both really into comics and music. Of course I said I was interested, so we scheduled a Zoom call to hash out the details.

     The afternoon of the Zoom call, Gerard filled me in on his concept of the tour, which would lean heavily on a fictional dictatorship rooted in an equally-fictional Eastern Bloc country. He wanted to create a language that was both made-up, and yet felt entirely real. In fact, he already had a name for this language...

KEPOSHKA

     We started delving into 1930s and 40s posters from Russia, England, Italy, and other countries, compiling a morgue file of reference images. We would send pictures to each other and try to figure out what appealed to us. After poster art, we moved on to brutalist architecture and then period typefaces. It was about that time that I broke out the art supplies and started sketching. I used 11” x 17” graph paper, tech pencils, and Copic tech pens. Over the course of several days, I drew some basic concepts, many of which would end up in the final fonts. I kept the letter-shapes simple and punchy. I wanted them to feel intimidating and ominous.

    While I was sketching, Gerard emailed me one particular glyph that he’d created and was calling, “the hangman” symbol. It was inspired by the old pen and paper game called, Hangman, that kids used to play. Gerard thought the symbol looked like the gallows from the game. I drew it as the last symbol on the sheet above.

    One of Gerard's first goals was to decide which three symbols he wanted to represent the initials, "MCR". His assistant diligently printed out my scans and cut out all the symbols so Gerard could make a decision. He spread them out on the floor of his studio to puzzle them together. Gerard adds:  "I swapped them around until I found the 'MCR'. This is before we wanted a cleaner 'C' since the other letters are clearly not an 'M' and an 'R'."

    In the end, I refined the "C", and we eventually ended up with the Keposhka version of the "MCR" logo you have no doubt seen in tour graphics.

    Other members of My Chemical Romance were now getting their first look at what we had been cooking up. While I didn’t have any direct contact with Mikey, Frank, or Ray, I was told that they were excited about the samples they’d been shown. After three or four rounds of this piecemeal approval of ideas, it seemed we were moving in the right direction and Gerard gave me the go-ahead to work independently. 

    A second sheet of 11” x 17” sketches followed over the next couple of weeks. In much the same way as the first, I sent Gerard previews as I went along. Not all of these ideas would end up in the final font files, but they were an important springboard for new glyphs moving forward.

    Inevitably there are revisions as you begin to see how the letters work together. When you start designing a font, you're initially looking at "the trees". By the time you get to the programming stage you're looking at "the forest".

    Speaking of which, it was time to bring these ideas into the digital realm. I began working on vector versions of the glyphs in Adobe Illustrator. Quite a few of the ideas from the sketches were used. When I ran out, I began creating new glyphs without reference. I was finally at a point where my familiarity with the style allowed me to just make up new symbols on the fly.

    Gerard mentioned early on that he wanted some unusual functions included with Keposhka, so I decided it would be fun to throw in some Opentype Autoligatures that would make the inevitable translation by the fans a little more difficult. Certain letter combinations would automatically change to entirely new, unique glyphs that aren't visible otherwise. By now you may have noticed that Keposhka has more than the standard number of English letters, and now you know why. I'm not going to reveal those combinations here. Gerard and I would rather you have fun figuring this stuff out on your own. 

    We also began thinking about numbers and punctuation. Many other non-English languages use standard numbers. Since these fonts might be used for merch, tour graphics, and other instances that might require understandable numbers, I created a clean, western set of numbers.

KEPOSHKA CONDENSED & EXTRA CONDENSED

    Originally, this whole project was just focused on a single pair of fonts; somewhat wide, very clean, sans-serif versions of Keposhka Regular and Italic—but I began to see that there might be a need for more. I finished up the initial set, and I proposed a Condensed Regular and Condensed Italic. Gerard was all for it. Later on, this Condensed set was shown prominently in the initial live-action trailer for the tour. 

    If you look closely, you can see many instances of Keposhka Regular on the buildings in the final scene of the trailer as well.

    As I was finishing the Condensed set, I figured an Extra Condensed Regular and Extra Condensed Italic might be useful for scenarios where space was at a premium. Gerard was eager for me to come up with anything I thought might be needed and gave me the thumbs up.

    I took the vectors of Keposhka Regular, Italic, Condensed Regular, Condensed Italic, Extra Condensed Regular, and Extra Condensed Italic created in Illustrator, and ported them over to Fontlab. This is my software of choice for doing all the programming, kerning, etc. involved in making professional, finished typefaces. I think it took about a month and a half to wrap up all six fonts. A well-designed font family can take up to several months to finish, but our deadlines were tight—there were other designers waiting on these fonts so they could get started on other facets of the tour.

    In late October/early November, with very few corrections from Gerard, the six fonts were approved and delivered, and as far as I knew, I was finished with the project. Little did I know that six fonts was soon to become fourteen!

KEPOSHKA ENGLISH

    A few months later, I got an email from Gerard. He’d realized that he needed an English typeface . . . and it would need to work aesthetically with our fictional language. Off the shelf English fonts might not cut it. Gerard was already very busy with tour prep, so he let me work almost completely on my own. I found myself re-hired on the project, and I got back to work. There would be no more analog sketching of ideas; I decided to work 100% in the digital realm, creating vectors in Illustrator. We decided on a simple sans-serif. Something traditional, slightly wide, and pleasing to the eye. This eventually led to Keposhka English Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic (bringing us up to ten fonts total).

    I’ve been making fonts for over twenty years, almost all of which are in English and other Latin-based glyph sets, so Keposhka English went more quickly than the fictional language. I didn’t have to imagine how weird symbols would fit together, or how this imaginary culture used punctuation, etc. I was back in my comfort zone.

    I finished and delivered Keposhka English Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic in mid-April of 2025. I thought it meshed with the original Keposhka when displayed side-by-side, and so did Gerard. Once again, I thought I was done . . . but it was not to be! Gerard had one more idea up his sleeve.

KEPOSHKA HYBRID

    We started with a completely fictional language, followed by a stylized English version inspired by the original font . . . but now Gerard wanted something in-between the two. Now that was a challenge—an English typeface inspired by the unusual shapes of Keposhka! I proposed another four-font set and got to work on Keposhka Hybrid Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic. Once again, Gerard was very hands-off. We were on the same wavelength and he trusted me to produce something cool. You'll note in the samples below that the numerals have become stylized as well.

    I had a lot of fun on this one; almost as much fun as the original set. There was a lot of trial and error and revisions once I moved everything to Fontlab and began to view the glyphs as large blocks of text. It had to be readable. I didn’t want anyone to struggle to tease out the meaning when Hybrid was seen...but I didn’t want them to just think this was Keposhka English, either. Finally, I was happy with the design, and I previewed it to Gerard. He gave it the green light with no further notes, and I delivered final files in late April 2025. After fourteen fonts, I was (mostly) finished with my contributions to the tour.

    I was hired back for a couple of small projects that you’ll see when you end up at the tour dates—I won’t spoil them for you! I’m really looking forward to your reactions to the immersive experience that Gerard and the band has planned for you. Maybe I'll see you at a show!

    Thanks for reading.

    -Nate

Keposhka™ and © My Chemical Romance LLC. All Rights Reserved. Images used with permission. No part of this article may be reproduced without the express permission of Nate Piekos, with exception for review or promotion.