Festivities for what would have been Hugo Chavez’s 60th birthday began with fireworks at midnight, as the deceased Venezuelan president’s supporters have been slapping on the party hats and getting jiggy with it today. According to Reuters, his replacement, Nicolas Maduro, visited Chavez’s hometown of Sabaneta to lead a celebration, complete with a group singing, “Happy Birthday” while surrounding a large cake. Maduro also claimed that he spoke to a “little bird” that told him, “El Comandante’ was happy,” but it was not determined whether or not he was kind enough to let the bird have some of the delicious cake.
Celebrations aside, the Chavistas at Creative Trench decided that the best way that they could contribute to Chavez’s legacy was by creating a new font named “ChavezPro” so that the socialist leader’s fans can forever honor him by typing their contempt for the capitalist swine in his handwriting.
Chavez’s bold scrawl became famous to Venezuelans as he used to spend hours on national TV writing and drawing on boards and papers to explain policies, develop ideas and sign deals.
His signature, in red for socialist, adorns T-shirts, baseball caps and the walls of buildings around the nation.
They used letters written by Chavez while he was in jail for a failed 1992 coup attempt to digitalize his handwriting.
“The best present!” enthused one ‘Chavista’ via Twitter. “The typography of the giant!” (Via Reuters)
The font is currently available for free download at Creative Trench’s website, and in a matter of minutes, you can start celebrating Chavez, too. Perhaps you’d like to turn El Comandante into a meme. Here, I’ll start: