keynote
speakers

 programme

This day is largely dedicated to workshops* that address various aspects of these other typographic worlds.

The afternoon also includes a visit to Letreiro Galeria, a project on luminous commercial signs from Lisbon and its surroundings.

*Please note that on Saturday Nov. 25th at 14:00 there will also be a workshop.

by Júlia Garcia (Oficinas de São Miguel)
    & Manuel Diogo (O Homem do Saco)

Max. 8 participants.
Prices: 45€ (general) 35€ (student)
Booking by e-mail until 14th November to 13et@ulusofona.pt

Letterpress workshop aimed at an audience with and without prior experience in the area.

Brief presentation of a letterpress workshop and basic notions of the typographic technique. Then, we will grab (literally) the letters of our Latin alphabet, manipulate them, deconstruct them, mix them, add and omit parts of letters, ornaments, spacing materials or other typographic material existing in the workshop. The goal is to create the letters of a parallel alphabet. Letters that lost verbal capacity but gained in expressiveness. Finally, we will put this expressive capacity to the test by printing posters with words of (dis)order, where the meaning of the message is a set of new graphemes with no associated phonemes.

Authors
Júlia Garcia holds a degree in Communication Design from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, is a communication designer at Cresaçor-Cooperativa Regional de Economia Solidária dos Açores and, together with the artist André Laranjinha, founded in 2007 the studio Alice's House on the island of São Miguel, Azores. From 2011 to 2021, she was a letterpress apprentice with master Dinis Botelho at Tipografia Micaelense. She is co-founder of the collective studio Oficinas de São Miguel. In 2019, with Manuel Diogo, she was part of the organization of "TIPO a Meeting of Letterpress Printers" in São Miguel, Azores.

Manuel Diogo: Master in "Contemporary Editorial and Typographical Practices" by the Faculties of Fine Arts and Architecture of the University of Lisbon with the dissertation Movable characters in the context of contemporary publishing production". Holds a degree in Social and Organizational Psychology from I.S.P.A. He studied Communication Design at Ar.Co and later completed the Complete Study Plan for Plastic Arts at the same school. He belonged to the graphic arts association "Oficina do Cego" and is a founding member of "O Homem do Saco". In 2019, with Júlia Garcia, he was part of the organization of "TIPO a Meeting of Letterpress Printers" in São Miguel, Azores.

by Ishan Khosla (The Typecraft Initiative, UPES Dehradun)

Max. 20 participants.
Prices: 45€ (general) 35€ (student)
Booking by e-mail until 14th November to 13et@ulusofona.pt

The Typecraft Workshops aim to teach participants how to understand material cultures and crafts in a deeper manner and to be able to convert folk or tribal art into letterforms and even a typeface. It provides a challenging opportunity for participants to think and work collaboratively while understanding craft communities and material culture. It is a way for the participants to engage with their own culture as well as those of others. The workshops begin with an ethnographic study of the maker group each group has been assigned. This helps them to get sensitized to how the crafts and tribal arts are made, adorned, and used and how they define the identity and ethos of a community as well as what is the significance of a certain motif, pattern, or color to a specific group living in a certain geographical landscape. For instance, the peacock motif to the thirsty desert Rabari community symbolizes their wish for rain and abundance as that’s when the peacock is seen dancing. Participants are encouraged to leave digital tools behind and only make things by hand. They begin by decoding a craft given to them in terms of its lexicon — how it is constructed and what forms are possible with the craft. Then, they repack that understanding to construct shapes possible and "allowed" by the craft back into letterforms. Participants will appreciate that graphic and type design can be used to address social, political, or cultural issues. This workshop provides an important platform for participants to look at sources of inspiration and knowledge beyond the mainstream Western contexts. Design methodologies still tend to be biased toward Western aesthetic sensibilities that tend to lead to precise, minimal, and provide definitive solutions which run counter to how older craft and tribal cultures construct visual narratives in vastly different ways— by using ornamentation and design to fill up negative spaces which is a sign of richness as it involves more workmanship and time. We thus are careful to strike a balance where possible, between these two sensibilities. We also encourage participants to get to more complex and authentic solutions that resemble the tonality of a craft — such as its boldness, fragility, or intricacy.

Author
Ishan Khosla is an Associate Professor at the School of Design at UPES, Dehradun. He is also the founding partner of The Typecraft Initiative which was launched in order to create a dialogue with rural folk and tribal communities through craft, type design and technology. He is also the director of the graphic design studio, Ishan Khosla Design LLP. Khosla is a practicing visual artist, designer and researcher with an MFA in Design from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Having returned to India after living in the United States for over a decade, Ishan explores various facets of the contemporary Indian milieu through design. Much of his research has been about examining the links between upcycling, innovation and “undesign” via the informal economy of urban India. He is currently working on a book on lessons and insights from the people who work and live on the street. His papers have been published in academic books such as State-of-the-Art Upcycling Research and Practice. [Springer,2021]; Art, Design and Society: Global Perspectives by the National Museum Institute, New Delhi [Macmillan 2021]; Bi–scriptual: Typography and Graphic Design with Multiple Script Systems [Niggli,2018]. Khosla’s design work has been published in Bi-scriptual — Typography and Graphic Design with Multiple Script Systems; Typographic Universe, Found Type, India Contemporary Design: Fashion, Graphics, Interiors; Tokyo Type Directors Club, New Graphic Design; Asian Graphics Now!; Stop, Think, Go Do; Kyoorius Design AwardsandKyoorius In-book. Exhibitions include, the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial, Perth, Australia | Handcraft for the digital: Type design from India at Atelier Muji Ginza, Tokyo | BOLD— Graphic Design from India, London Design Festival |  Crossing Visions V: The Ecology of Creation, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan | Fracture: New Directions on Contemporary Textiles, Devi Art Foundation | Make it New Again, NID, Ahmedabad | Common Ground at Gallery OED, Kochi. Works created for Porosity Kabari at Studio X, Mumbai in 2016 have been shown at — Matters of Hand: Craft, Design and Technique (SerendipityArts Festival) | Continental Shift: Contemporary art and South Asia (Bunjil Place) | Nishi Gallery, Canberra | the Australian Design Center, Sydney | and the Hawkesbury Gallery. Works made by Ishan are in the permanent collections of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan and the Powerhouse Museum, Australia. Awards include the Oxford Bookstore, book cover of the year award; Tokyo Type Directors Club, the Kyoorius Design Award, the Kyoorius design in-book, Asian-Pacific Design Awards, Graphis among others.

By W Type Foundry (Magdalena Arasanz & Patricio Gonzales)

Full (Limited to Lusófona University students)

The goal: to design a typeface by various authors in a collaborative way; dividing letters, numbers, symbols and punctuation among the participants and bringing them all together to form a complete font family.

1. Print construction kit + instructions (shapes and grid);
2. Cut shapes; 
3. Build assigned letter placing the shapes over the grid;
4. Paste shapes; 
5. Scan and forward your letters. 

Authors
Magdalena Arasanz is an Advertising graduate from the Universidad el Pacifico de Chile and a Typography Designer with a Diploma in Typography from Universidad de Chile. She participated in the TiposLatinos International Biennial in 2016. Her work has been awarded in Latin America. She organized the Latin American Typography Biennial in 2018. Partner and general director at W Type Foundry. Has given numerous talks at events and universities. She has conducted several workshops as well.

Patricio Gonzales: Graphic Designer from Universidad Mayor and holds a Master's degree in Design and Art Research from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. He also completed a Diploma in Typography from the Universidad de Chile. He has participated in the TiposLatinos International Biennial in 2014 and 2016. His work has been awarded in England, the United States, and Latin America. He organized the Latin American Typography Biennial in 2018. He was part of the design team for the official typography of the National Library. He assisted in the research for the book "Orígenes de la Tipografía en Chile" (Origins of Typography in Chile). He was a professor at the University of Chile, where he taught undergraduate workshops and the postgraduate digital typography diploma. He has also taught at Duoc and UNIACC. He is a partner and designer at the W Type Foundry digital type foundry. He is the creator of the research project LetraCuerpo.org, which focuses on studying the relationship between the materiality of words and the body.

by its founders Rita Múrias and Paulo Barata.

Max. 15 participants.
Price: Free
Booking by e-mail until 17th November to 13et@ulusofona.pt

Letreiro Galeria is a project focused on collecting, restoring and displaying commercial luminous signs from Lisbon and its surroundings.

Both graphic designers, Rita and Paulo recognize the historical and even affective dimensions of these graphic objects, since contribute to city´s histories and to a feeling of belonging to the place where one lives. Thus, they are committed to giving these signs back to the people, namely through the various exhibitions they have organized or participated in. 

The Conference´s panels open with a keynote session by Silas Munro, followed by the cluster of presentations Widening Type Geographies.

The afternoon starts with keynote session 2 by Tereza Bettinardi, followed by a thematic cluster on Other Histories.

After the third cluster Type/ Non Type we will meet at Stolen Books Gallery for the Opening of the Conference´s Exhibition.

From the funky, fresh Black modernism of the Johnson Publishing Company’s headquarters designed by John Warren Moutoussamy with Arthur Elrod and William Raiser to the expressive graffitied grids of Adam Pedelton’s monumental canvases in black and white, there lives a wide-ranging matrix of possibilities for what I consider to be a Black Grid. The renowned design scholar Audrey G. Bennett’s text, Follow the Golden Ratio from Africa to the Bauhaus for a Cross-Cultural Aesthetic for Images, traces a lineage of fractal ingenuity in the Sub-Saharan Cameronean palace of a Chief in Logone-Birni that likely influenced Egyptian, North African Temple architecture, linking to Italy through the mathematician Fibonacci know for his so-called “golden ratio” that then informed European ideals of beauty circulating in the infamous Bauhaus art school. Bennett’s postulations connect to my meandering search to see myself as a Black designer, artist, and unexpected design historian in a sea of pedagogies that don’t represent me or my lived experience. This brief visual essay charts a series of experimental meditations on how grids can shape Black liberatory forms—as in the work of W.E.B. Du Bois’s collaborations with his students at Atlanta University in 1900. Black Grids can operate as tools of resistance in graphics by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the collective visual production of the AfriCobra movement, and the printed materials of The Black Panther Party—all objects in the exhibition catalog, and show Strikethrough: Typographic Messages of Protest. Today, you find Black Grids in the letterpress printing of Amos Kennedy, Schessa Garbutt’s identity system for The Nap Ministry, and Amanda William’s What Black is this You Say? My Polymodal design investigations set a curious space that asks, What might be a Black Grid?

Moderation by Francisco Laranjo

by Chris Lee (Pratt Institute)

This paper maps the theoretical and methodological dimensions of an on-going project called 1882–1982–2019 which entails the design of a “chop suey” typeface and specimen book. The project experiments with typography’s indexical affordances and capacity for historical narration. The typeface is not optimized for legibility but is rather developed for unpacking critical questions surrounding the relationship between labor, design, craft, quality, value, and race. While most of these notions would not be out of place in discourses of typography, the latter term — race — is seldom given serious attention in the field.The typographic (or, type) specimen is taken up as a genre of commercial writing that invests letterforms with significance and value. It is framed by a synthesis of scholarly work from a variety of fields including performance studies, whiteness studies, and Asian-American studies, and the history of illustration. This idiosyncratic composition of reference points strives towards a more radical resonance. That is, 1882–1982–2019 is rooted in an examination of the historical persistence of the anti-Asian tropes as one constitutive element in the construction of normative, white-supremacist ideas around labor, craft, and value. It explores how the language and attitudes of such tropes are resonant in typographic discourse, pedagogy, and practice. A primary methodological vehicle — endemic to type design — entails the mining of archival sources for letterforms. These are extracted from a variety of historical documents ranging from late-19th century political cartoons to contemporary popular media, and digitized. Artificial intelligence image generators like Dall-E and Midjourney are also applied to generate typographic form to stage a further examination of the performativity of contemporary typographic labor. This project opens critical questions about the disciplinary aims of typographic history, implicates it in racial discourses, and challenges normative, ostensibly de-racialized, processes of valorization in typography.

by Ishan Khosla (The Typecraft Initiative, UPES Dehradun) & Andreu Balius (typerepublic)

Launched in 2012, The Typecraft Initiative develops a range of display typefaces based on the rich crafts and tribal arts of South Asia. Our primary aim is to inspire craftspeople to engage with the design and use the typefaces to inspire, create awareness and generate further interest in the art, history, context, and life of the people and the communities we work with. The typefaces are not only an archive of the IPR of communities that are on the brink of merging with mainstream society, but they are meant to be a celebration of their rich artistic heritage that — through the creation of a digital typeface — has been converted to a contemporary idiom. We are also interested in raising larger socio-geopolitical issues such as gender and minority rights through the creation of our typefaces. It might seem ironic to be making a typeface with craftswomen who themselves are largely illiterate. Working on letters with women in a largely patriarchal society—makes a statement by reinforcing connections between letters and women which sometimes leads to changes, even if small, in these communities. This can have a powerful meaning to local communities where it can provide identity, agency, and functionality — via embedding symbols a group uses into the typeface.

by Luis Gerardo Aguirre, Aritza Cruz Olguin, Laura Alejandra Fernández Gutiérrez & Karla Rodríguez Rosas (Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla)

The goal of this research is to create a graphic design proposal that promotes the preservation and dissemination of the Nahuatl language among young people aged 18 to 23 who reside in La Resurrección, Puebla, Mexico. The research is based on a qualititve and cross-sectional-descriptive approach that collects and analyzes data from the demographic group, linguistic and cultural context. The theoretical and contextual framework discusses indigenous languages in Mexico, especially Nahuatl Yuto-Nahuatl, and cultural diffusion through social design.Two graphic outputs are developed; a mural and a fanzine under the principles of social design providing solutions to social problems, with an ethical, creative, innovative, strategic and non-commercial character. The problem is approached under a qualitative study approach, focusing on the social experience to understand the situation from the inside of the phenomenon, supported by a cross-sectional-descriptive research that allows for the collection and analysis of data of the age group. A hybrid model of analysis of: Geraldine Marshall's table, Charles Morris's immersion type and dimensions of the graphic sign to identify errors and successes of similar projects that addressed the problem of linguistic diffusion among youth with murals and zines. Finally, the eleven-step methodological strategy is presented, which forms the basis for the creation of two graphic products: a mural and a fanzine with stories and illustrations to disseminate cultural aspects of the region. The steps include making decisions about illustration style, typography, color palette and composition, as well as sketching and its various stages, which are elaborated from keywords, their definition, printed models, evaluations, and their respective verification. The graphic proposals generate interest and connection with young people, as well as convey accesible and attractive messages about the Nahuatl language and its heritage importance. The project demonstrates how social design can be used to address social problems such as the preservation of indigenous languages.

by Paola Irazábal Gutiérrez (ESTUDIO PI)

This presentation will analyze two editorial projects designed by the design studio ESTUDIO PI (www.estudiopi.cl), which exemplify the importance of typography and design in the Chilean context. The first project is the book New Chilean Creatives, Costume Design, which stands out for its approach as a book-object, employing various materials and experiences in its design. In this case, the concept, typography, and color played a fundamental role in its creation. We will explore how these elements contributed to the visual and tactile experience of the book, and how they were used to convey the identity and essence of its content, including the crucial role of typography in the printing process. The second project to be analyzed is the magazine Santiago, a Chilean publication that contain national and international topics, including culture, art, and politics, among others. The importance of legibility in editorial design will be emphasized, highlighting how the appropriate choice of typography and layout influence the reading experience in a magazine. Additionally, we will explore how a specific Chilean typography has been used to provide a unique, local, and identity-driven sense to the magazine.The strategic use of editorial design and typography in communicating and representing Chilean culture, both locally and in a global context, will be examined.

In varying degrees — and depending on which geographical location you occupy on this planet — we all have felt the impact books have on our understanding of what design is. Very often, gazing at graphic design bookshelves can evoke mixed emotions, as they don't consistently connect with or account for our surroundings.

Having designed books for more than two decades, more recently Tereza has been running a small publishing house devoted to expanding the range of design books available in Portuguese in Brazil. In this lecture, she will raise some questions about how publishing can ignite an honest and open dialogue with designers from several parts of Brazil and abroad.

Moderation by Isabel Duarte

by Ane Thon Knuten (KHIO)

This study aims to explore the artistic and cultural contributions of Nancy Cunard, a printer, publisher, and designer from the inter-war modernist era, with a focus on her work as a letterpress printer and her connection to Virginia Woolf. The research investigates how Cunard’s printing practice was influenced by Woolf’s pioneering efforts in setting up The Hogarth Press in 1917 and how Cunard, like Woolf, challenged established hierarchies and norms within the publishing industry, setting up her own The Hours Press in 1927. The study also delves into the collaborative relationship between Woolf and Cunard, particularly in relation to the publication of Cunard’s poem Parallax, which Woolf typeset and published. It highlights the shared themes of their works, addressing the aftermath of World War I and the Spanish Flu, and challenges the notion that Cunard’s poem was merely a pale imitation of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The research sheds light on the misogynistic devaluation of women’s contributions within the publishing industry. Cunard’s memoirs, entitled These Were the Hours, serve as a comprehensive account of her involvement in printing and publishing. She sought to create aesthetically pleasing books while disregarding conventions, embracing experimentation, and following her own aesthetic instincts. Cunard’s printing practice reflected a punk-ish aesthetic, featuring rough bindings, expressive covers, and typographical and visual playfulness. In conclusion, this study aims to bring recognition to Nancy Cunard’s often-overlooked artistic contributions and shed light on the historical significance of her printing practice. By examining Cunard’s work through the lens of graphic design and letterpress printing, the research contributes to a broader understanding of self-publishing history and its impact on contemporary artist books. The study highlights the parallel struggles faced by Woolf and Cunard within a patriarchal system and underscores the enduring relevance of their unconventional approaches to printing and publishing.

by Omiros Panayides (Cyprus University of Technology)

The presentation will be about the online archive Books, Type and Cyprus. It´s an online open resource, functioning as a Design Archive, providing access to nearly 400 books that were published in Cyprus or were authored/published by Cypriots. The archive is Graphic Design related, type-centered and includes materials dating from the early 20th century until the late 1990s. This archive is an attempt to build an appreciation towards the local graphic design scene, writing its own design narrative, oriented for designers, book enthusiasts, writers, and the humanistic field. The presentation will also showcase a side project called TypeType which is a web-app for generating random texts, utilizing the letters that were found on book covers from the Cyprological Book Archive. It accesses a library of cut-out glyphs (letters, numbers and punctuations) to create an original mashed-up typographic synthesis. 

by Oriol Moret & Sheila Mardones (Universitat de Barcelona)

This paper reviews some documents from the Neufville Typefoundry. It must be set within the scope of a larger, long-term research project, initiated years ago, that sought inventorying and classifying material of that typefoundry according to type-specific criteria. The driving idea behind the project is to consider typography as a process, where craft specialities and materials are sequentially related. The documents at issue enhance this processual view. Of marginal resonance in usual type studies, they are knowledge bearers that help better understand the operation of a gone-by trade and provide valuable information on the evolution of typography.

Moderation by Sílvia Prudêncio

by Oscar Salguero (Interspecies Library)

In the last years a number of international artists and designers, concerned with urgent ecological matters and in reaction to decades of rational typographic doctrines, have turned to alternative / speculative modes of language and script representation inspired by the aesthetics and communication possibilities in other species. These works by practitioners stemming from countries such as Chile, South Korea, US, Switzerland and Latvia explore the hypothetical language of beavers, fly larvae, mushrooms, bacteria, slime mold, beetles, plants, and more. In simultaneous, and perhaps not coincidentally, there has been a growing interest in nonhuman intelligence and language both in films (Arrival, 2016) as well as in board games (Xenolanguage, 2022). This talk will attempt to act as a survey of these experiments whose results are slowly manifesting through the development of new, organic graphic identities for conferences, institutions, and other media (music albums, publications, video games). As we enter a new era of AI-assisted animal and interspecies communication research, it is important to pay attention to the enigmatic nature of these new typographic developments and the types of perceptual worlds they may open for us.

by Ringailė Demšytė (Willem De Kooning Academie)

People are highly visual creatures, most of us make sense of the world by looking and observing. For now, the only language that we understand directly from non-human beings like mushrooms and plants is visual. For example, we know that something is wrong with a plant, if it’s leaves turn brownish. Human communication is very limited. We stick to verbal language and visual perception, that is why in order to at least somehow understand mushrooms, in this project I translate fungus electrical spiking activity that resemble human speech to more “human” language, so we as very limited beings, could somehow make sense of intelligent fungi. Before we get to the point where we are able to convey information by electromagnetic fields to other living creatures, speculative visual language of fungi could be the gateway and a first step for communication between humans and nonhumans. To help recognise the importance of this project, this research document first peaks into the relationship between nature and humans. It briefly touches on the role of humanity in this climate catastrophe that we find ourselves in at the moment and the need to understand nonhuman agency. It looks into various exciting initiatives like Zoop and terra0, that incorporate interests and needs of nonhuman life in times of ecological degradation. Before imagining new realities, I looked at the emerging new research on the language of invertebrates and creatures without nervous systems, with a focus on mushrooms and their role as messengers in a forest. Deriving the inspiration from newly conducted scientific research by Adam Adamatzky on Fungi’s electrical language, I speculate what the visual language between humans and fungi could look like based on their electrical spiking activity? By researching the context, I analysed what the visual language of fungi could be based on and figured out how could it look like via making. The Visual Fungi Language aims to attract the attention of scientists and ecology enthusiasts. As Tony Ho Tran writes in his article Speculative design: 3 examples of design fiction ‘Where typical design takes a look at small issues, speculative design broadens the scope and tries to tackle the biggest issues in society. It seeks to answer questions like: <…> How can we design for a healthier ecosystem?’.

by Beatriz Martins Fernandes, António Silveira Gomes & Aprígio Morgado (ESAD.CR)

Considering the scarcity of information and the lack of knowledge in general regarding stenography, since it is not commonly used nowadays in daily or academic contexts, and also given the decreasing number of people who hold this specific knowledge it becomes increasingly urgent the preservation and recovery of a relevant archaeological and bibliographic iberian archive of an almost extinct writing form. Thus, the present research aims to study the universe of stenography and its relevance, if any, in contemporary contexts and technologies. By examining these concise and efficient writing methods and their pedagogies, the study seeks to expand our understanding of historical and archival possibilities by enabling the deciphering and analysis of existing documents in historical archives. Within the scope of the master’s degree, it was crucial to acquire reliable information about this writing form. This objective was pursued through a non-interventionist qualitative methodology, which involves the use of methods such as bibliographic research, literature review and critique, conducting interviews with experts in the field, including stenographers, teachers, and students. Therefore, in this paper, we present the groundwork, analysis, collection, and research of case studies that enabled us to gather information about Portuguese shorthand that would have otherwise been impossible to acquire, serving as a fulcral point to enrich the project. The bibliographic research revealed the existence of several Portuguese shorthand authors. However, none of them provided sufficient evidence to determine the official Portuguese shorthand system. As a result, interviews were conducted, which revealed that the Martinian System was the official one. The interviews also helped us gain insight about the teaching methods of shorthand employed in class, as well as the layouts students used to enhance writing efficiency.

by Stefan Ellmer (Oslo National Academy of the Arts/ The Pyte Foundry)

Despite being a relatively new term introduced in 1997 by visual poets Tim Gaze and Jim Leftwich, asemic writing has in recent years become a buzzword for a vast variety of non-semantic, graphic expression. Situated on the intersection of visual poetry, fine art and calligraphy it is defined as a form of mark making with no conventionally fixed, semantic meaning. Acting as pure form — or rather a coincidence of form and content — it merges aspects of drawing, painting, writing and calligraphy. This talk will give a brief overview of asemic practices within poetry, fine arts, and graphic design. Furthermore, asemic writing shall be examined as an educational tool as devised previously in various schools of design (e.g. André Gürtler, Martin Andersch, Denise Lach). The talk will also give insight into related research on the correlation of gestures, conventions and tools conducted at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts by Stefan Ellmer and Maziar Raein.

by Varya Goncharova (Atelier National de Recherche Typographique)

How can we uncover, analyse, and explain the intricate system of interweavings in archaic handwritings? Between calligraphy and lettering, the writing style known as Cyrillic Vyaz provides this challenging task. It uses an extremely complex system of abbreviations and different types of ligatures that contributed to transform the headlines of ecclesiastical books into a dense and continuous ornament, unique, lively, and highly variative. Through this style, we can see how Cyrillic capital letters reveal their remarkable ability to adapt to different proportions and even to different surfaces: Vyaz appears in monumental architecture, as well as on liturgical objects and clothing. During the era of printing, technical limitations prevented the precise transfer of its graphical nature. The style survived, but was mainly preserved in ossified forms, or in the drawings of artists and works by calligraphers. However, the digital era provides many more possibilities and wide range of technical solutions for conveying its original taste. The Ti(gh)tle project involves research based on paleographic studies and typographical practices. The aim is to collect the most astonishing and peculiar samples, analyse them, and "untie" the lines. And afterwards, reflect on how to use these features in modern typography and adapt them for different languages.

Curated by Hugo Barata & Paulo T. Silva

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. _{(Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho, 1983)}

The exhibition The Types Between aims to create a double movement, a reflection and a space between the word and its graphic imagery. Based on a universal choice of authors, from various geographies, the experimentalism of typography is elevated, and the failure as a foundational concept for the exploration of language through the printed word is highlighted. If, as in Beckett, the exploration of the visible world through poetic text must be an incursion beyond the surface of things, the plasticity of contemporary typography also extends beyond the support and printing technique. The proposals presented in the exhibition highlight this variety, calling on the micro and macro, between languages and between countries, from two-dimensionality to three-dimensionality. The Types Between is an exhibition to be unread, in the sense of what failure proposes – a circularity between doing and undoing – in the reading and in the visuality of the letter as a sign with its on plasticity.

With:
Andreu Balius 
Ane Thon Knutsen
Delli Press
Fernando Ribeiro
Francisca José Rodrigues
Laura Meseguer
Letreiro Galeria [Rita Múrias & Paulo Barata]
Omiros Panayides
Pouya Ahmadi
Ringaile Demsyte 
Stolen Books
X-Lab [Levi Hammett, Hind Al Saad e Sara Al-Afifi]

27 Nov. 2023 – 5 de Janeiro de 2024

Day 3 starts with a keynote session by Naïma Ben Ayed, followed by the thematic panel Type Languages.

In the afternoon the short film A sombra, torrentes de sonhos e imagenswill be presented while the workshop Meet the Characters will take place.

After the panel Letterpress Past and Futures, the conference will close with a collective print.

As human beings, designers, researchers, educators, it is difficult not to feel pessimistic about the near future. We are operating in a context of persisting oppressions and injustices, ongoing genocides and a climate crisis. It is hardly possible to do business as usual. 

Yet, as Danah Abdulla said in her article Against Performative Positivity, “Pessimism is not without hope”. To me, hope is the first step towards creating alternative possibilities. For this keynote, I will look specifically at:

︎Imagination as a tool for resistance
︎Telling stories as survival
︎Creating achievable changes through collaborations
︎Deconstructing the myth of perfection

Moderation by Silvio Lorusso

by Marta Guerra Belo (COW, Universidade Lusófona) & Paulo T. Silva (i2ADS, FBAUP)

This paper presents and reflects on the work developed in A Rede: Workshop 3 (The Hammock) of the Picnic educational project, integrated in the 7th Other Delli Week of the degree in Communication Design of DELLI – Design Lusófona Lisboa. This project proposed the exploration of the learning space as an informal and communitarian environment transporting the school out of doors through the structure of a picnic. Within Picnic, Workshop 3 dealt with the design of natural space through the concepts of appropriation, protection, dimension, and dialogue, in the relationship between the suspended fabric, the written word and poetry. The team explored the word – its deconstruction, rhythm and meaning – with typography – experimental work on letter design – and its relationship with support, material, and space, to create a poetic structure with six suspended fabrics. The article is divided into four sections: a brief overview of the Picnic educational project; a theoretical framework of Workshop 3: A Rede, namely the supporting references; a description of the development of the activities; and finally, a reflection on the process and results. The text is guided by several visual references that frame the project and photographs collected during the process and final installation. This paper was specially developed for Typography Meeting 13 – Other Typographic Worlds, framed in the topics Art, Language and Typography, Text as Image and Image as Text, and Pedagogy and Methods in the Teaching of Type Design. This work is supported by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the Strategic Project with the reference SFRH/BD/144228/2019.

by Stefan Ellmer (Oslo National Academy of the Arts / The Pyte Foundry) & Tânia Raposo (Atelier National de Recherche Typographique/Université Paris 8)

This talk presents research into illustrative, ornamented, anthropo- and zoomorphic letterforms — both historical and contemporary — and shows their educational potential within primary level and undergraduate teaching. By combining elements of writing, lettering, and illustration these letterforms reveal the malleability of the roman alphabet and emphasize the expressive possibilities beyond their purely semantic function. In their ludic attitude these examples are examined for their pedagogical possibilities as a tool in teaching letterforms. An initial workshop was held with second-grade primary school children in Oslo/Norway. A series of exercises focused on the importance of gesture and physical involvement as well as showing alternate modes of playful engagement with letter shapes. Furthermore, these methods are employed in teaching letterforms to undergraduate graphic design students. Here as well — by bridging the disciplines of writing and drawing — this approach can help lower the perceived threshold into letter design and typography.

by Joana Teixeira & Pedro Amado (FBAUP)

According to the National Eating Disorders Collaboration, eating disorders are mental illnesses characterized by disturbances in behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes toward food, weight, or body shape. The most frequent are Anorexia Nervosa (AN), Bulimia Nervosa (BN), and Binge Eating disorders, which have increased over the years, becoming a growing concern worldwide. This project consists of the design and publication of an impactful and interactive online social media campaign with the goal to inform and educate Portuguese society about eating disorders in order to assist their prevention. The campaign’s visual graphics make use of a custom-designed variable display typeface, developed to establish subtle analogies with some of the characteristics and sensations of living with these disorders without reinforcing stereotypes. For example, sharp serifs, to represent social isolation, are used as a metaphor for protective mechanisms. The campaign combines the digital font with bespoke photography, giving rise to hybrid-language digital artifacts that will later be implemented and showcased with animation, as well as analog artifacts, namely, a brochure and typographic specimen, showcasing the variable font’s features. With this project, we intend to reinforce the semantic possibilities of typography, demonstrating how the shapes of a typeface can be associated with feelings, emphasizing the expressive and aesthetic capabilities which are often put in second place to legibility. Also, to demonstrate how the designer can intervene in an educational sense and in the areas of health and well-being, in this case, helping in the prevention and identification of behaviors that characterize these disorders, to prevent them from being triggered so frequently, avoiding drastic consequences, such as death. Both objectives are assessed by the online feedback and interaction of visitors in different modes of communication. And by interviewing a sample of professionals and people in recovery.

by Daniel Barroca. Roundtable with Daniel Barroca & Catarina Laranjeiro

I propose to screen a short video about Victor Bor's vernacular writing. Bor is a member of the Kyangyang, a group of Balanta healers and diviners who emerged in the 1980s in the south of Guinea-Bissau. One of Kyangyang's main features was the visionary experiences, under the guise of dreams and even auditory hallucinations, that led to very individualized self-learning processes of rather peculiar forms of writing whose authors claim to be the writing of God. Such forms of writing are still used as healing techniques, and overall, they constitute a vast and complex visual culture that, to some extent, gives a fascinating account of the Balanta's recent history. The founder of the Kyangyang movement was a woman called Ntombikte, who gathered a considerable number of followers who claimed to be possessed (caught) by The Shadow (Kyangyang in Balanta). Therefore, under the influence of a force that led them to learn how to heal their fellows through divine forms of writing like the one practised by Victor Bor.

Authors
Daniel Barroca (1976) studied Fine Arts at the Caldas da Rainha School of Art and Design (1996/01), at Ar.Co in Lisbon (2002) and at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut (2013/14). He was a resident artist at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2008), the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (2010/11) and the Drawing Center in New York (2015). His work is represented in the collections of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, MAAT, MACE, the Carmona e Costa Foundation and the Botin Foundation. In 2016 he received a Fulbright scholarship that took him to the Anthropology department at the University of Florida where he did a master's degree in Anthropology. He is currently doing a PhD in Anthropology at DANT.ULISBOA with an FCT grant, and is co-author, with Catarina Laranjeiro, of "Fogo no Lodo", a documentary film produced by Kintop and supported by ICA, about war and religion in a Balanta community in southern Guinea-Bissau.

Catarina Laranjeiro, 1983. Researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History FSCH-Nova, where she is working on vernacular cinema in Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau and their respective diasporas in Portugal and France. She holds a PhD in Post-Colonialisms and Global Citizenship from the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, where her dissertation focused on the role of cinema and political cosmology in the Guinean Liberation Struggle. She regularly participates in various projects and collectives that cross anthropology, photography and cinema.

Moderation by Rita Carvalho

by Sofia Meira (Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto e Esad—idea), Pedro Amado (Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto) & Rúben Dias (ESAD and Esad—idea)

This article seeks to reflect on the evolution of technologies associated with Letterpress, as well as the growing interest in learning its current use in the context of Higher Education in Design. The offer of activities, with practical workshops (Hands—on Type, 2021) – is no longer a novelty, verifying the search and offer of experiences through know-how, attested by the emergence of associations, from private workshops, but also the interest in implementing this technology in schools, particularly in higher education or with specialized courses. In the national context, few schools kept typographic equipment on their premises. Those who maintained are maintaining or recovering. Those who didn't have it are finding ways to acquire or equip it — p. e. ESAD. Since, for all of them, part of the effort to find composition material is being supplied in a complementary way with traditional and digital manufacturing technologies (such as CNC, or 3D printing). The former Imprensa Nacional workshop schools or the Escola de São José and Workshop, had the purpose of training typographers for a market in which typography was the main means of reproduction. Technical training is no longer sought, but exploratory learning from a graphic point of view is sought. Additionally, the use of a simple direct printing process (polychromatic) allows the development of global and comprehensive learning of each stage of the printing process, capable of being applied to the current socio-technological context. And thus train more competent students and professionals. Currently, the implementation of workshops in schools has a completely different purpose. It is at this point that new processes of development and production of tools can contribute as a facilitator for the implementation of the practical teaching method and democratize its use. New forms of “savoir faire” in both presses and types, both in wood and derivatives and in other more recent materials, such as plastic, emerge as an alternative to obsolete methods.

by Roberto Gamonal Arroyo (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) & José Luis Rubio Tamayo (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos)

Typography and letterpress are disciplines that have clearly influenced graphic design and visual and multimedia communication. Traditional printing methods are nowadays preserved in various spaces dedicated to disseminating knowledge related to this historical stage of typographic composition and printing, explaining the origin and evolution of printing from the incorporation of movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century to the present day. This type of workshop, of a purely analogue nature, has a series of particularities with respect to the informative and learning activities that are carried out there to explain the process of design, composition and printing with movable type. They are spaces that are difficult to replicate on other scales and formats due to the characteristics of the activity itself, which requires heavy machinery that is difficult to transport, as well as being very specific and old material that forms part of the history of typography. Digital technology can be at the service of these artisanal processes in order to represent and be a means of disseminating these techniques, as well as their historical knowledge. As they become more complex and sophisticated, digital technology makes it possible to integrate these types of spaces into an immersive environment through the design of different types of content, with extended reality being one of the most potentially efficient media in this process of interactive representation. This article proposes the implementation of a prototype of a handcrafted typography workshop using 3D scanning techniques for the design of the "proto-space", in order to subsequently develop a model based on blocking, using the A-Frame framework as a tool for prototyping and testing interactions. This makes it possible to get to know, through virtual reality glasses, the scanned space of the Plómez Family (a typography workshop located in Madrid), which also enables the creation of informative and educational prototypes based on this type of technique.

by Laura Membrado & Oriol Moret (Universitat de Barcelona)

This paper presents a web platform that facilitates instruction in letterpress composition and printing. It is conceived as a digital, educational tool that conforms to the characteristics of movable type. The platform has a relational database structure that links different sections: workshop floor plan; inventory and list of materials; typecases and movable type stock; type specimens; students work; and the letterpress composition tool. The project is built on a real case study: the Letterpress Workshop at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Barcelona. The relationship between physical and virtual spaces allows the user to work on the platform as a complement to the actual Workshop.

by António Fonseca

This paper, following others on Portuguese private type foundries, presents the results of the research conducted on the Alexandrino José das Neves type foundry. This foundry started activity around 1821. It was the work of its creator and mentor, who for over 40 years guided his work by perseverance and innovation.Through bibliographical research in archives, libraries, and public records we tried to trace the profile of Alexandrino José das Neves and gather some notes about his type foundry. It was possible, by crossing several sources, to create a timeline about the life and work of Alexandrino José das Neves, as well as to locate two typefaces commercialized by his type foundry. Finally, a vector digitization of the located fonts was carried out for a comparative analysis of their characteristics in an attempt to locate their origin.

by Stefanie Rau (Weißensee School of Art and Design)

Max. 10 participants.
Prices: 45€ (general) 35€ (student)
Booking by e-mail until 14th November to 13et@ulusofona.pt

This workshop is a typographic storytelling workshop that focuses on the relationship of content and form inherent in typography. To break with the assumption that there is such a thing as “neutral” typography, we are looking very explicitly at the character/style/vibe/emotion/affect of different typefaces that participants will bring into the space. In the process, we will personify these typefaces and develop and design dialogues. This workshop applies collaborative approaches of radical pedagogy to graphic design with a playful attitude. Based on the idea that designing always involves collective processes this workshop aims to counteract the patriarchal myth of the design hero and centers the presence of every participant. Bell Hooks writes in teaching to transgress (1994):
“To begin, the teacher must genuinely value everyone’s presence. There must be an ongoing recognition that everyone influences the classroom dynamic, that everyone contributes. These contributions are resources.” I understand this quote as the basis for every teaching environment. For this specific workshop we are expanding “everyone’s contribution” in regard to the typefaces that will be present in the space and their transformation into our friendly/mean/caring/desperate/powerful … compagnions.

Author
Stefanie Rau (she/they) ☞ is a graphic designer with an artistic writing practice ☞ is interested in (visual) translation processes ☞ likes to think and write (/ write to think) ☞ has been involved in self-organized educational settings ☞ studied Visual Communication at the Berlin University of the Arts and Critical Studies at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam ☞ believes in (self-)criticality as a mode to stay in motion ☞ is co-founder and partner at the graphic design studio operative.space based in Berlin and Cologne ☞ teaches typography at the weissensee school of art and design in Berlin since 2019 ☞ understands teaching as learning, unlearning, and the responsibility to create a space ☞ has been part of the graphic design team of queer-feminist Missy Magazine in Berlin.

PALAVRA (WORD, in English) in Mandombe writing. Experimental test by Nelma Francisco, DELLI’s 1st year student. 

We want to thank Professor Bitombokele Lei Gomes Lunguani (Director of Mandombe University, Luanda) and to Professor Celso Salles for the precious help.

registration
     (here)

venue

delli &
cow

Graphic Design
Marta Guerra Belo


13et@ulusofona.pt

13ET ︎ ︎ ︎

DELLI ︎ ︎ ︎
COW ︎ ︎

Scientific Commitee

Álvaro Sousa (UA) PT
Andreu Balius(Typerepublic/EINA) ES
Ane Thon Knutsen (KHiO) NO
Ann Bessemans (PXL) BE
Antero Ferreira (FBA–UP) PT
António C. Rodrigues (ULusófona) PT
Antonio Sanchez Gomez (UR) CO
Antonio Silveira Gomes (ESAD.CR) PT
Aprígio Morgado (ESAD.CR) PT
Catarina Mendes (FBA–UP) PT
Catherine Dixon (UAL) GB
Daniel Raposo (IPCB) PT
Eduardo Manso (Emtype Foundry) ES
Elisabete Rolo (FA–UL) PT
Emerson Eller (FBA–UL) BR
Enric Jardí (EINA–CUDAB–UAB) ES
Fábio Martins (Scannerlicker) PT
Fernando Coelho (ISECL) PT
Fiona Ross (UReading) GB
Filipe Luz (ULusófona) PT
Francisco Laranjo (ULusófona) PT
Frank Grießhammer (Adobe Inc.) DE
Gerry Leonidas (UReading) GB
Helena Barbosa (UA) PT
Hugo Barata (ULusófona) PT
Hugo D’Alte (Hugo d’Alte) PT/SE
Inês Marques (ULusófona) PT
Isabel Duarte (ULusófona) PT

Isabel Lucena (ULusófona) PT
Joana Correia (NovaTypeFoundry) PT
Joana Casteleiro (LabCOM–UBI) PT
Joana Lessa (UALG) PT
Joana Monteiro (Cl. dos Tipos) PT
João Brandão (FA–UL) PT
João Cunha (ULusófona) PT
João Lemos (ESAD) PT
João Neves (IPCB) PT
João Brandão Pereira (IPCA) PT
Jorge dos Reis (FBA–UL) PT
José Silva (ESAA–IPCB) PT
Júlia Garcia (CRESAÇOR) PT
Laura Meseguer (Type-Ø-Tones) ES
Leonor Ferrão (FA–UL) PT
Luís Alegre (ULusófona) PT
Luís Frias (ICNOVA–UB) PT
Luís Henriques (OHomemdoSaco) PT
Manuel Diogo (OHomemdoSaco) PT
Margarida Azevedo (ESAD) PT
Marco Neves (FA–UL) PT
Maria Lonsdale (ULeeds) GB
Marta Guerra Belo (ULusófona) PT
Miguel Carvalhais (INESCTEC–UP) PT
Miguel Sanches (IPT) PT
Natalie Wolf (ULusófona) UK/PT
Nuno Coelho (UC) PT

Olinda Martins (UA) PT
Oriol Moret (UB) ES

Patrícia Cativo (ULusófona) PT
Paulo T. Silva (ULusófona) PT
Pedro Amado (FBA–UP) PT