My motivation for designing the Lalibela family (which is based on Bodoni) was to pay homage to Ethiopic script. The script has been around for about 3 000 years, but I took artistic licence to deviate from the original model and add personal touches. I chose Bodoni as a historical model because of its display value and not its text size use because the extreme contrast made it difficult to read at small sizes. A Modern typeface characterized by consistently horizontal stress, flat and un-bracketed serifs, and a high contrast between thin and thick strokes, were the final step in typography two-hundred-year journey away from calligraphy. The austerity, simplicity and greater contrast style was perfected.Contrary to all the refinements in Bodoni, I have revisited calligraphy with the font Lalibela that mimics Ethiopic Script. It was drawn with a much larger x height and less geometric than Bodoni for its primary use as a display font. For example, a lot of italic serifs were added to the roman face as well as 16 additional ligatures to obtain more a feel of calligraphy. I made the serifs thicker and bracket one side with straight steps obtaining a reduced contrast to withstand breaking up at smaller sizes.An additional variant, "Lalibela Alternate" was designed to provide an interesting mixing possibilities with the Bold face for more expressive headlines.