Exhibition Review: The Calligraphy Revival 1906–2016

Diane von Arx, United States, 2002

The Grolier Club’s exhibition The Calligraphy Revival 1906–2016 (May 17 – July 29, 2017; 10am–5pm Mon–Sat; free admission) is a unique opportunity for anyone interested in applications of western letterforms to experience firsthand the breadth of calligraphy’s beauty as well as its utility. The exhibition, curated by Jerry Kelly, features works by a diverse range of calligraphers. It runs the gamut from art to design to handwriting and often defies categorization.

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Alphabettes Variety Show: we’re back!

UPDATE! Couldn’t make it to the live variety show or just want to relive the whole thing? Here’s the recording (listen on the site or download):

mixlr.com/alphabettes/showreel/alphabettes-variety-show-at-typographics-2017/

Here are a few fun highlights, captured on twitter:

Thanks for listening!

❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️📻❤️

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Typographic Potential of Variable Fonts

This article is based on the presentation What The Government Doesn’t Want You to Know About Variable Fonts delivered at ISType conference in Istanbul. It’s a summary of my personal thoughts on recent developments that might have an effect on responsive typography. It is also a collection of references to inspiring projects and experiments some of my colleagues have been doing. It touches on a few concepts I found necessary to explain but it shouldn’t be considered an in-depth report on those. Continue reading

Takeaways on Teaching Type

Left: The organizers! Dan Wong, Doug Clouse, Liz DeLuna, and Aaris Sherin, photo courtesy of Liz DeLuna; Right: The panelists! Juliette Cezzar, John Gambell, Amy Papaelias, Thomas Jockin, photo courtesy of Nina Stössinger

This past weekend, I had the pleasure to participate in Teaching Type: A Panel Conversation on Typography Education, organized by Design Incubation, and hosted at the Type Directors Club in New York. The event attracted a range of attendees: educators, typographers, type designers and even a few students and recent graduates. Armed with only the most comfortable of metal chairs, we set out on a 3-hour journey to explore best practices of typography curricula today.

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Type Days Ljubljana 2017

We are Alja Herlah and Krista Likar, enthusiastic and passionate type designers from Slovenia. As members of the TipoBrda society, we got the opportunity to organize a type design workshop. Type Days 2017 – a one week long workshop – was already the 31th type design workshop organized by Tipo Brda in Slovenia. It took place in Ljubljana in the House of Reading and Writing, Vodnikova domačija Šiška. This year, we invited a guest mentor Adam Katyi, Hungarumlaut, who shared a lot of valuable tips and guidelines he learned while studying at the Type and Media program in The Hague.

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Mayakovsky: ROSTA windows

ROSTA windows were Agitprop posters created by artists and poets like Cheremnykh, Mayakovsky, Moor, Nuremberg, and Volpin for the Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA). They were usually displayed in windows and often painted with cardboard stencils rather than printed.

This is a selection of Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky’s posters designed for ROSTA from the book:
Duwakin, W. (1967). Rostafenster. Majakowski als Dichter und bildender Künstler. Dresden: VEB Verlag der Kunst


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Just Getting Started

What a day! We marched throughout the world and the outpouring of homemade messages of solidarity, resistance, love, and strength has been overwhelming. Here are a few of our efforts and some amazing signs we witnessed.

Some signs by Bettes:

Briar

Victoria

Nina

Dyana

Theresa

Isabel

Marisol

Nicole

Lila

Jen

Mary

Taylor

Jessica

Dirty Bandits

Indra (after ECS)

Tânia

Caren

ECS and Naomi

Our Washington DC correspondents ECS and Naomi found some amazing signs at the big march:
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October – December 2016 News

It’s [finally!] time to say goodbye to 2016 and we thought we’d end the year with a long overdue round up of Alphabettes-related news.

October:

The Fitchburg Alphabet project by Anna Schuleit Haber for Fitchburg, MA’s Sentinel & Enterprise newspaper wins Publick Occurrences Award for outstanding journalism. Contributors to the series included Shoko Mogikura, Nina Stössinger, Laura Meseguer, Therese Schuleit, Francesca Bolognini, Anna Schuleit Haber, Indra Kupferschmid, Geri McCormick, Catherine Griffiths, and Nicole Dotin

Barbara Bigosinska releases Mala


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