Speaker Juan Villanueva

Juan Villanueva is a Peruvian typeface designer, letterer, and educator based in New York City. As a Senior Type Designer at Monotype, he contributes to library designs such as Helvetica Now, Futura Now, and Walbaum and creates custom projects for global brands like Google, Microsoft, Tencent, M&Ms, and Entertainment One.

Juan is the co-founder of Type Electives, an online school shaping the future of type education. Previously, he was the lead instructor of Type West Online, where his curriculum brought together theory and practice and emphasized community and collaboration. He also founded Type Crit Crew, an initiative making type design education more accessible and inclusive. Juan has taught at Type@Cooper and The City College of New York.

He speaks at design conferences worldwide, including ATypI, Typographics, TypeCon, LADFEST, Letrástica, DiaTipo, BICeBé, BIPOC Design History, WATBD?, and Poster House. In 2021, he created Typefaces as Cultural Objects, an archive highlighting typefaces by Latin American designers that honor and preserve Latin American culture.

Juan graduated from the Type@Cooper Extended program and served on the board of the Society of Scribes.