Pour several cups of type designers, lettering artists, typographers, and graphic designers into an email thread. Sauté in hot feminist butter. Add a blog, conference meetups, online hangouts, virtual crits, and a mentorship program. Sprinkle a generous handful of friendship and dialogue.
Let simmer for 10 years.
Serve in a book form: Alphabettes Soup.
In 2025, Alphabettes turns 10.
We’re celebrating a decade of feminist typographical pot-banging with a visually engaging and resourceful book for type design professionals, enthusiasts, and students—but we need your help!
Alphabettes Soup: 2015–2025 showcases 10 years of feminist-based approaches to type research, design, and creative community-building. More than a linear history, the book blends the platform’s most outstanding articles with new essays on type design history, technology, and practice, interviews with Alphabettes members, visual histories, and reflections on past and current initiatives and programs.
The book will also feature type-specimens of various writing systems, typographic treasures, and numerous resources to challenge dominant narratives in typography, encouraging future generations to cook up their own decentralized design communities.
What are the ingredients?
Authors / Contributors (working list):
Tanya George (India), Kateryna Korolevtseva (Ukraine), Muk Monsalve (Argentina), Dina Benbrahim (Morocco / US), Nicole Dotin (US), Sol Matas (Argentina / Germany), Laura Serra (Sardinia / US), Joana Correia (Portugal), Ane Thon Knutsen (Norway), Carolina Giovagnoli (Argentina / Germany), Sandra García (Columbia / Mexico), Sahar Afshar (Iran / UK), Dyana Weissman (US), Liron Lavi Turkenich (Israel), María Ramos (Spain), Ana Moliz (Spain), Indra Kupferschmid (Germany), Tânia Raposo (Portugal/France), Maria Montes (Spain), Elena Veguillas (Spain / UK), Flavia Zimbardi (Brazil/Germany), Hendrika Makilya (US), Nora Gummert-Hauser (Germany), Shaqa Bovand (Iran / UK), Pooja Saxena (India), Lisa Maione (US), Sibylle Hagmann (US), Alice Savoie (France)… and many more!
The Editor:
Amy Papaelias (she/her) is one of the founding members of Alphabettes. In late August 2015, she purchased the domain Alphabettes.org, and a month later she set up the blog with Indra Kupferschmid during some late-night, cross-Atlantic CSS and WordPress hacking. Since then, Amy has helped keep the lights on at Alphabettes.org (with a small team of wizards and unicorns), which has published over 400 original posts and 200+ headers by over 200+ authors. In her spare time, Amy is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the State University of New York. She has presented her research at national and international venues, including the Type Directors Club, the Letterform Archive, and ATypI. She has written about typography for many online and printed publications including Adobe Create, The Recorder, Typographica.org and TypeNetwork.org.
The Designer:
Tereza Bettinardi (she/her) is a designer and publisher based in São Paulo, Brazil. She has worked for major companies including Companhia das Letras/Penguin, Planeta and Harper Collins. In 2014, she opened her own studio, through which she works across editorial, visual identity, packaging and environmental design. Her work has been awarded by ADG Brasil, Buenos Aires International Book Fair, Jabuti Prize, the Latin American Design Awards, the Type Directors Club New York, and The American Institute of Graphic Arts, amongst other prizes. She has taught at several design schools in Brazil, and regularly lectures at design conferences around the world. Her writing has been published by Princeton Architectural Press (New York, USA) and Fazer Revista (Portugal). In 2020, Tereza founded Clube do Livro do Design, a virtual book club turned into a publishing house devoted to expanding the range of design writings available in Portuguese.
The Publisher:
Bikini Books is a feminist publisher based in Porto, Portugal. Established in 2023 by the designer, curator, and editor Nina Paim, Bikini publishes beautiful books and engaging stories at the intersection of design, visual culture, and architecture, with a focus on accessibility and critical thinking. Nina Paim is a three-time Swiss Design Awards recipient. She has co-curated numerous exhibitions, workshops, and events, including Escola Aberta (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2012), Beyond Change (Basel, Switzerland, 2018), Department of Non-Binaries (Sharjah, UAE, 2018), Feminist Findings (Berlin, Germany, 2020), and most recently Etceteras: Feminist Festival of Publishing and Design (Porto, Portugal, 2023). She has co-edited several publications, including Taking a Line for a Walk (Spector Books, 2016), Design Struggles (Valiz, 2021), and Alter-Care (Esad-Idea, 2021). In 2020, she co-founded the feminist platform Futuress.org, which she co-directed until mid-2023, when she left to start Bikini Books—her lifelong dream.
We need your support!
We are seeking type foundries, agencies, studios, and other stakeholders in the type design industry who are willing to provide financial support from US$500 to US$5000.
In a feminist effort to foster collaboration rather than competition, we will acknowledge all supporters equally in the book and in all its promotional materials, including Alphabettes’ social media, website, and launch events.
Why not a public crowdfunding campaign, you might ask? Because those are laborious and risky, and we need to focus our attention on cooking up the content: 10 years of it! We will open up pre-sales to a general audience in 2025—essentially a later-stage crowdfunding campaign.
Timeline:
August 2024: First drafts of all new and revised texts
September 2024: First design proposal
October 2024: Final revised drafts due
December 2024: Revised design proposal
January 2025: Copyediting
February 2025: Pre-sale campaign launch
March 2025: Typesetting / design
June 2025: Final print production and marketing launch
July 2025: Send to press
August 2025: Begin international distribution
September 2025: Book Launch at Etceteras Festival (Porto)
October 2025–beyond: Further book events worldwide
Want to help us make Alphabettes Soup?
If you are interested in sponsoring, please get in touch: hello[at]alphabettes.org / hello[at]bikini-books.com
If you’d like to make a donation via PayPal (>$500 USD), you can do so here:
Join the Alphabettes Soup Mailing List
Receive updates on the book’s progress, pre-sale announcements, and invite you to our launch events. Stay tuned for next steps! 🥣😘👌💚