Type design begins with learning to see. This keynote traces how calligraphy, vernacular lettering, local visual cultures, and multilingual collaboration shape a personal design practice — from shop signs and archives to typefaces built across scripts and cultures. Through this selection of projects, the talk examines how observation becomes research, how collaborating with people and… Continue reading Seeing Through Type
The way we create and share meaning is changing as AI enters daily life. This calls for new kinds of visual communication—not fixed sets of symbols, but flexible systems that can grow and adapt. This keynote explores how machines can help design visual languages that connect people across cultures. The aim isn’t one universal language… Continue reading Language of Tomorrow: Generative Pictographic Systems in the Age of AI
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the Arabic-script typographic ecosystem has matured and continue on evolving in promising ways. The dynamism and creative energy of the young generation of designers in the region recalls the creative production of the early years of Arabic calligraphy. Today like back then, much investment has been made in… Continue reading Twenty-Five Years of Transformation: Subjective Reflections on Engagement with Arabic Typography
Typography is part of a larger human system of communication: thought becomes language, language becomes speech, and speech is captured in symbols so that meaning can travel from one mind to another. Throughout history, humans have devised remarkable ways to make this possible, creating writing systems that continually evolve in response to new technologies and… Continue reading Beyond Between: The Secret History of a Font Format
What makes a design feel like it belongs — to a culture, a community, or a moment in human experience? In this closing keynote, Yiying Lu draws on two decades of cross-cultural creative work to reveal how color, typography, and iconography shape the way we see ourselves and each other. Through deeply personal and professional… Continue reading Designing for Belonging: How Color, Typography, and Iconography Shape Culture, Community, and the Human Experience
Sixty years ago the type industry began to radically change towards digital technologies. While this change did not occur over night, it is best described as a long transitional period that spans almost two decades of explorations into different models of numerical letterform description. In response to these developments, various environments emerged as nurturing grounds… Continue reading The emergence of a new community
Why should a pop-up book about type exist? This talk is about teaching type as a hands-on explorable explanation. While most art school students are exposed to art history and aesthetics (and understand, for example, why different paintings look the way they do), the same cannot be said for type, which often remains cut-off from… Continue reading Exploring Type History Through Touch
Designing a dictionary lemma is a typographic challenge. Within a limited space, various types of content must be organised: the headword, phonetic transcription, grammatical category, definition, etymology, common phrases, and cross-references. These layers are typically distinguished using typographic variations such as different weights, italic styles, and the use of brackets. Amsterdam-based studio SJG has designed… Continue reading Graphic Strategies in Dictionary Typography
Bo Linnemann, one of the most influential contemporary Danish type designers, has left a significant mark on Danish visual culture through his work on typography for many of the country’s largest and most recognizable brands. As the co-founder of Kontrapunkt and a celebrated figure in Scandinavian design, Linnemann has dedicated his life to shaping how… Continue reading A Lifetime with Danish Letters
This presentation offers a broad overview on Australian typography over the past 40 years. Aimed at an international audience as well as those locals eager to contextualise and understand their own contribution, it is by no means exhaustive in nature. Spanning four decades of type design (existing typefaces, lost typefaces), typographic designers and typographic publishing… Continue reading How We Got to Now: A Brief Survey of Australian Typography 1983–2023