Multiplicity: A Font That Represents and Reflects the Experience of Cross-Racial Solidarity

In collaboration with Related Tactics—an artistic collective co-founded and led by artists and cultural workers Michele Carlson and Weston Teruya—this project asks us to imagine a font set where there might be areas that are legible, some that are less legible, some areas that might fall apart, and areas that show an interdependence. Legibility across the set is less of a priority than there being something new being generated—potentially with an added treatment to those sections—for us that messy new-ness can be a tool to imagine a Collective Futurity. This font aims to amplify the way that text is operating as a form of knowing, not just the original text. Something that demonstrates a multiplicity of ideas, voices, histories in a systematic way that asks us to critically consider what is being narrativized.

Aasawari S. Kulkarni is an Indian Graphic and Type Designer based in Washington D.C. With an especially keen interest in typography, background in Devanagari and Latin type design, and experience in academia, she brings a diverse skillset to her creative practice. Her independent studio practice explores the intersection of theory and practice, within the frameworks of feminist design theories and her South Asian cultural inheritance. She enjoys collaborating with cultural and educational organizations. She graduated with an MFA in Graphic Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and holds a Certificate in Type Design from TypeWest at Letterform Archive. Her work has been recognized by Graphic Design USA, Malee Scholarship by Sharp Type, Graphis, Creative Quarterly, among others.