Feeling Seen, Eating Cake, Making Soup

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.

It was wonderful to meet several ‘Bettes I had never met in person (Sol! Caro!), meet new friends (Golnar!) and see familiar faces again (Briar and Indra, who even knit me socks during the conference 😭).

Now, several weeks after Typographics 2025, I’m feeling all the feels again. There’s something so special about getting together with old friends, meeting new ones, sharing cool things, and hearing others share their cool things that feeds my nerd soul. Here again are a few moments that were captured, though I barely took any photos:

At the TypeLab on Thursday, June 26, we shared a bit about the Alphabettes Soup book and ate some cake. The conference itself featured excellent speakers, of course. But the best parts are the in-betweens: the coffee breaks, the bathroom line, the last minute lunch plans, the 30-second conversations before the next talk,. There are some folks I only see at conferences; like we exist frozen in time until the next year, when we’ll sit next to each other once again in a dark lecture hall. I am so grateful for these moments of connection and shared experience. Sometimes, we can have our cake and eat it too. 💚

And speaking of the Soup...

We’ll be sharing more news and updates about the book soon. If you’d like to sponsor, there’s still time; reach out to sponsorship@bikini-books.com. If you’d like to make a smaller donation, you can do that here and we’ll be acknowledging all supporters in the book. You can also sign up for our newsletter, which will eventually exist. I am so appreciative of the 75+ authors and contributors, and our mighty little editorial-design team: Tereza, Caren, Xindha, Gui, and Nina. They each deserve a cake, or two. 🍰

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