Grab a spoon and get ready for some big SOUP updates!
On April 1, Alphabettes Soup: Feminist Approaches to Type was printed and bound at Gráfica Maiaduoro in Portugal. I was so fortunate to travel to sunny Porto with my daughter and hold the very first finished copy: a 2.4-pound, 400-page beauty! We held a soft launch on Thursday, April 2 at the Bikini Books HQ. Over forty people came, books were sold and signed, and it was an absolute thrill to share it with the world for the first time.
Since 2019, Alphabettes has spent nearly every International Women’s Day doing what it does best: hastily dis-organizing a 24-hour online hangout across timezones and continents with a loose schedule that anyone on the internet was welcome to join. We’d take a virtual type walk around Mumbai with Tanya. We’d join Romina and friends in Mexico City for an 8M March with handlettered signs from her community poster-making workshops. We’d hear cool conference stories from Theresa in San Francisco. We’d chit chat in Spanish for an hour with Laura and Dafne and Caro. We’d say hi to pets and babies and make breakfast, lunch, and dinner together, all at once. In 2026? Instead of hanging out, some of us decided we’re hangingin. Or maybe, hanging on. We’re still here, but for now, it’s ok to hang up the internet for the day or hang out in other ways.
This International Women’s Day, I’ll be helping to bring a very hot soup to simmer. After two years of non-stop planning, writing, editing, organizing, emailing, type pairing, proofreading, and spreadsheeting, Alphabettes Soup: Feminist Approaches to Type, heads off to the printer very (very!) soon, after every tiny error has been uncovered in these 400 beautiful pages (🤞). Hang tight!
Today is Alphabettes.org’s 10th Birthday! On our first birthday, we celebrated with cake. On our fifth birthday, we celebrated with wood type. Five years later, we’re still here and this time, we’re celebrating the milestone with a book! Our book.
Alphabettes Soup cover and spine, designed by Tereza Bettinardi, featuring glyphs from over 70 typefaces 0_o
Alphabettes Soup: Feminist Approaches to Type 384 pages 100+ contributors 55 original articles, essays, and interviews 120+ typefaces by women and non-binary people
It’s been over three months since the SEEN–Around the World Symposium, hosted at the LUX Pavilion and organized by Gutenberg University of Applied Sciences in Mainz, Germany, April 9–11, 2025. Presented in a hybrid format, the conference brought together presentations and discussions with women and non-binary designers on topics related to typography, type design, and lettering. Rather than provide a detailed conference overview, here are some snapshots from the 3-day adventure, which included silly photoshoots with the Papa Gutenberg statue.
To date, we’ve raised about half of the total amount we need to bring this book to boil. We still have a long way to go, and this is where we’d love your help! All funds go to the printing and production, as well as offering honorariums to authors. You can also help us spread the word.
We’re back for the Alphabettes Variety Show at the TypeLab at Typographics on Thursday, June 13, 2024, 12:45-1:20p EDT! This year some of us will be at 41 Cooper Square, but you’re also welcome to join from the comfort of wherever you are via the livestream or sign up for the TypeLab Zoom link to participate, ask questions, share soup recipes, etc.
Now in its 7th edition, but first back in Cooper Union since 2018, the Variety Show includes live interviews, interactive activities, and fun things. While we can’t guarantee more dance lessons or birthday cakes, we might have a few more surprise up our sleeves. Stay tuned to find out! ⭐️
2024 Variety Show graphic features Tiny Grotesk by Robin Mientjes.
Sandra García is a type designer based in Mexico City, half of TipasType (who recently released Sandhouse), co-author of Elementype, prolific user of reaction emoji, and now, podcast host to the brand new TypoDcastMx. She answered a few questions about this new endeavor in Español and English.
The last time Lisa Huang shared a Very Cool Thing on Alphabettes, she published her research on Noto Sans Nüshu script, and the community of women behind it. Two and a half years later, Lisa is back to answer some questions on her newest Very Cool Thing, Words of Type.
Tell us about your new project and Kickstarter campaign! Words of Type is an encyclopedia of typography, with each term illustrated, described and explained into multiple languages. Each term is explained in concise and straight forward terms to be easily understood, and illustrated by multiple artists to bring visual variety and fun. To bring the various typographic cultures closer together, there will be not only terms from Latin typography, but also those of other writing systems. To give a (literally) better access to typographic knowledge, it’s going to be a website that gives free access to everyone, everywhere. And it will grow and evolve over time, with more languages and words.
Alphabettes Variety Show is back for its 🤯6th edition🤯 of live interviews, interactive activities, and other surprises as part of TypeLab at Typographics. We’ll be mostly online again but if you’re in NYC, go check out the in-person TypeLab at Cooper Union.
Grab your mug of tea or beer or anything in between and join the TypeLab Europe channel on Thursday, June 15 from 11-12:00 (EDT/UTC-4)! Register here or check out the full list of event on the TypeLab site.
2023 Variety Show graphic by Sandra García featuring the soon-to-be-released typeface Sandhouse!
What makes one qualified to use this title? Is there a certain amount of time someone needs to be professionally active in a field to call themselves one? Is it others’ perception that matters? How are these concepts tied to gender, class, race, geography? Why do structures exist to perpetuate the use of the term and why do we think this is acceptable?
I’ll be sitting here thinking about these questions while sipping my tea.
