Exploring the intersection of materials, chemistry, and design.
Lucida never became rich. But every time she saw Casual Bold in the wild—big and friendly, like an old friend waving from across the street—she smiled.
She uploaded Casual Bold to every free font site she could find. No license. No payment. Just a note: "Made with love. Use it freely."
Lucida made her choice.
Within a year, her font appeared on protest signs, children's books, small business logos, and indie game titles. A bakery in Vermont used it for their "Fresh Bread" sign. A nonprofit in Kenya used it for literacy materials.
But when a big tech company offered her a fortune for exclusive rights, she hesitated. Her friend Marco laughed. "Take the money! Fonts are just shapes."
Lucida had spent years designing the perfect casual bold font—rounded, warm, and impossibly readable. She called it Casual Bold .
That night, she watched a student struggle with an expensive license for a similar font. The student gave up and used an ugly default instead.
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Principal Investigator, Professor of Chemistry
Panče Naumov leads the Smart Materials Lab and the Center for Smart Engineering Materials at NYUAD. His group is internationally recognized for pioneering crystal adaptronics and advancing adaptive molecular solids, with applications in sensing, robotics, optics, and energy systems.
Meet the TeamLucida never became rich. But every time she saw Casual Bold in the wild—big and friendly, like an old friend waving from across the street—she smiled.
She uploaded Casual Bold to every free font site she could find. No license. No payment. Just a note: "Made with love. Use it freely."
Lucida made her choice.
Within a year, her font appeared on protest signs, children's books, small business logos, and indie game titles. A bakery in Vermont used it for their "Fresh Bread" sign. A nonprofit in Kenya used it for literacy materials.
But when a big tech company offered her a fortune for exclusive rights, she hesitated. Her friend Marco laughed. "Take the money! Fonts are just shapes."
Lucida had spent years designing the perfect casual bold font—rounded, warm, and impossibly readable. She called it Casual Bold .
That night, she watched a student struggle with an expensive license for a similar font. The student gave up and used an ugly default instead.
We are proud that the Smart Materials Lab is the leading team in impactful chemistry research in the United Arab Emirates, with research output that, according to the Nature Index, accounts for 40‒60% of the total chemistry publications within the country, both in fractional count and weighed fractional count. The past and current research projects in the Smart Materials Lab have been sponsored by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC), Human Science Frontier Program Organization (HFSPO), and the UAE National Research Foundation (NRF), in addition to generous financial support from NYUAD and the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute. The members of the Smart Materials Lab work closely with NYUAD's Center for Smart Engineering Materials (CSEM).