We asked Lucas to tell us everything ATypI members could ever want to know about him. He had much to share.
Please provide us with your bio.
Lucas Czarnecki does a bit of everything, so long as it has to do with type. After teaching the first-ever course on typography and graphic design at the University of Virginia, Lucas began a two-year letterpress printing apprenticeship at the Virginia Center for the Book. He then founded the Charlottesville Design Week—Virginia’s first design festival, which he has grown to more than 1,000 annual attendees—and Type365—a typography blog read by thousands. Lucas has presented at TypeCon, The Virginia Festival of the Book, Society of News Design, and TEDx. During one such conference, Lucas met Roger Black and began writing and designing for TYPE Magazine. He recently founded Arena, a web agency to help independent type foundries establish themselves, and serves as Creative Director for Type Network.
Give us a sentence that perfectly describes your love for type.
Type.
Before this year, were you a member of ATypI? If so, when?
No.
Were you previously a member of the ATypI board, or a country delegate? If so, when?
No.
Describe your experience/involvement with ATypI activities.
I have been an observer, so far.
Tell us about your current and past involvement with other type and design organizations.
Since first attending TypeCon in 2014, I have spoken at it three times and participated in other ways, producing stage animations, video editing, photography, and other odds and ends. For several years, I worked with Roger Black at the non-profit TYPE Magazine, through which I produced two conferences: The Art of Rolling Stone at SVA Theatre in New York and Type Tales Chicago in Chicago.
For five years, I served on the advisory board for the Virginia Center for the Book, teaching letterpress printing courses, volunteering for the Virginia Festival of the Book, and organizing programming for the book center. In 2016, I founded the non-profit organization Tuesday Design Society (TDS) to foster a greater design community in Virginia. TDS’s primary output, the Charlottesville Design Week, has grown to more than 1,000 attendees each year, donated tens of thousands of dollars of design work to other non-profits, and hosted renowned speakers such as Aaron Draplin, Meaghan Dee, John Downer, Eddie Opara, and Marie Otsuka, among others.
In my three years at Type Network, I have worked with dozens of foundries and hundreds of designers to tell their stories, promote their typefaces, and advance the independent type industry. I carry that mission forward with my new agency, Arena.
Describe your leadership experience with other nonprofits and work with conferences, workshops, publications, teaching, or other activities in the type, design, tech, and related communities.
Besides the experiences detailed above, I co-wrote and printed Speaking in Faces, a typography primer and specimen book of more than 300 cases of lead type, the largest collection of publicly accessible type in Virginia. I have also participated in numerous artist book projects through the Virginia Center for the Book. For two separate semesters, I taught typography at the University of Virginia and Piedmont Community College. My three TypeCon talks have touched on subjects ranging from type in film to AI type design. Through TYPE Magazine, Type Network, and my own blog, Type365, I have published more than 200 articles on type, typography, design, and designers. As a designer myself, I have given form to branding, magazines, annual reports, websites, applications, and more, for clients ranging from small publishers to international conglomerates.
Why should ATypI members elect you to represent them on the board of directors?
I see ATypI as possessing three core categories of initiative: events, community building, and publications. With experience in all three areas, there are many opportunities for me to contribute. The prompt says to write several paragraphs of detailed information, but the best I can offer is that if you know me or examine my dedication to type and typography, you will know that I can and will be an effective contributor as a member of the board of ATypI,
Answers and materials were provided by the candidate as part of their self-nomination for the ATypI board election. Candidate is a paid ATypI member in good standing and agrees to remain so if they are elected.