Belgium unifies Flemish, French, and German speakers. While these languages are assigned to distinct regions (Flanders, Wallonia, and a German-speaking community), the capital of Brussels is governed multilingually. Brussels also hosts leading European Union institutions, making Belgium a place of true importance for multilingual policy studies. During my ongoing research of history, practice, and theory of multilingual typographic media, I noticed that the methodology of putting different languages and scripts into a mutual context can be studied from a variety of Belgian typography samples – from historic printed matter such as Plantijn’s famous polyglot Bible of 1573 to modern-day signage systems or legal documents. Detailed analysis aims at revealing the motivations leading to the complex task of multilingual media production, the methodology used to achieve it, and, especially, the “togetherness” of different languages, scripts, or writing systems. What significance does this togetherness transport on the backdrop of changing political contexts? Belgium is a crucial place on the quest for the meaning of multilingual media in the EU: in a time of growing concern with Euro-skepticism and protectionism, do multilingual media express European unity or division after all? Can they provide transparency to put opinion-making into a European perspective?
Plantijn’s Biblia Polyglotta and Belgium from the perspective of multilingual typography
Roman Wilhelm
Roman Wilhelm (born 1976) studied visual communication at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle (Saale) in Germany, where he now teaches hand lettering. Wilhelm studied under Professor Fred Smeijers for a typeface design master’s degree at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. Besides working for Berlin-Beijing-based studio INSIDE A Communications, he is a member of the Multilingual Typography Research Group at the Geneva University of Art and Design. A fluent Chinese speaker, his work focuses on cross-cultural mediation, Chinese-Western bilingual typography and typeface design issues. A frequent visitor of Asia, he has taught at various academies such as the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design, as well as the Seoul National University College of Fine Art. Besides teaching hand lettering at the University of Art and Design in Halle (Saale), he is a doctoral candidate at the Braunschweig University of Art. Roman is also kind of a musician.