This presentation is founded on an ongoing a PhD project to investigate the performance of Greek typefaces in operating systems and user interface (UI) environments. Greek is one of the most widely supported scripts after Latin across both operating systems and web-safe fonts, but despite its unique historical and cultural importance, it remains critically understudied.
Previous research in reading performance has almost exclusively focused on the Latin script. This research has applied both theoretical frameworks and empirical research, and have used standardised computer-human interaction (CHI) procedures as evaluation systems. In contrast, research on Greek fonts is limited and fragmented. This imbalance limits both typographic quality and user experience in digital environments.
This research assesses the applicability of Latin-script procedures for Greek. At the first stage, it investigates whether research approaches may be transferable between scripts, and formulates characteristics of Greek typography that necessitate special evaluation standards. By mapping these commonalities and variances, the study lays the groundwork for future empirical research. It encourages creating a comprehensive, cross-script paradigm for typeface evaluation in multilingual digital contexts.
Irene Vlachou is a type designer based in Athens. She holds an MA in Typeface Design from the University of Reading. She has collaborated with international type foundries and corporations, working as a type designer and a consultant for Greek typefaces.
Her work includes lectures and workshops on Greek typeface design and variable fonts, as well as creating technical manuals for the Greek script.
From 2013–2019, she was a senior designer and variable font expert at TypeTogether.
On behalf of the Greek Open Source Community (GFOSS), she is a mentor on the expansion of Greek libre fonts for the GSOC (Google Summer of Code) program.
In 2019 she co-writted the experimental project “FauxFoundry”, a webfont service offering fallback fonts, creating instantly the missing Greek character set.
During the spring semester of 2022, she was an artist-in-residency at La Becque, and a visiting professor on the Master Type Design programme at ECAL, Lausanne.
She currently works full time as a freelancer type designer, specialising in OEM system fonts. Since 2025 is a PhD candidate at the Department of Product & Systems Design Engineering, of the University of the Aegean, in Syros, Greece.
Her work includes: Parmigiano Greek (2014, Typotheque), SamsungOne Greek (2016, Brody Associates), LL Bradford Greek (2016, for the brand identity of Documenta14, Laurenz Brunner), LL Unica77 Greek (2017, Lineto), Stratos Greek (2018, Production Type), SauberScript Greek (2020, Typejockeys), Atlas and Lyon Greek (Kai Bernau, Commercial Type, 2021, 2024). From 2017 onwards she is participating in the design of variable and parametric projects for Google Fonts (Source, Noto, RobotoFlex and Amstelvar."
Irene Vlachou