AI and typography—a dialogue between humans & nature!

Creativity and innovation are no longer exclusively the province of humans, but the result of collaboration, a game of interpretation in the dialogue between humans and machines. This is the world in which we live today, where artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving and new scenarios are opened. The world is facing a new era of typographical artifacts, typography that kisses the rigor of the function to embrace new expression values.

Typographic Knitting – of Pixels, Stitches, Wool and Warmth

With Typeknitting, Rüdiger Schlömer explores the typographic potential of various hand knitting techniques, opening a dialogue between digital typography and the analog craft of knitting. His talk will open up his development process, parallels between (type)design and knitting and the side effects of translating Helvetica or Futura into hand knitting patterns.

Collaborating in design and code

With more and more tools at a designer’s disposal, collaboration becomes more important. Working together with people with different skill sets is key within Studio Dumbar/DEPT®. A great example is the visual identity for D&AD Creativity Festival — a project that utilizes diverse skills such as sound design, visual design, motion design, and creative coding. Chris (Lead visual designer) and Sander (Lead Creative Coder) will share the process behind this award-winning project.

Words of Type

Even with all the books and articles about these topics, access to typographic knowledge is not as international and easy as it could be. Most of the resources are in English, books are either out of print or cost too much with or without shipping costs, and knowledge about writing systems other than Latin alphabet is way too scarce. That is why Words of Type has been created! An online and multilingual encyclopedia of typographic terms.

Óska: Aesthetic Sovereignty for the Lakota Language

Óska is a speculative type design project that rejects colonial orthographic mappings and proposes a writing system for the Lakota language centering traditional Očhéthi Šakówiŋ aesthetics. Óska's formal direction comes from the traditional bead and quill craft of Lakota women—celebrated artisans whose aesthetics left an indelible mark on Očhéthi Šakówiŋ culture and the image of Native people in the American Settler imagination.

What’s code got to do?

You must understand, oh, the touch of my keyboard / Makes the visual react / That it's only the thrill of idea meetin’ visual / Opposites attract / It's physical / And illogical / You must try to ignore that it means more than that / Oh / What's code got to do, got to do with it? / What's code, but a faster computation? / What's code got to do, got to do with it? / Who needs art when art can be programmed?

"Experimental Typography, BUT"

Anna Dora will talk about developing a personal design language and gives some in depth details about her most popular typographic experiments.

Inspiring Meaningful Connections

Whether online or offline, today's media landscape is one thing above all: loud. More and more messages are reaching us through more and more channels, fighting for the scarcest commodity on the advertising market: our attention. To survive in this shark tank, it's no longer enough for designers to simply project their images and messages to the outside world. It's about leaving a lasting impression. One way to achieve this goal is through the use of generative design.

Static Images in Movement

If a poster or an illustration can be considered a captured moment of something in movement, what happened to that visual before and after that moment? ‘Static images in movement’ will explore the relationship between motion and static outputs in graphic design. It will focus on how the former can influence and elevate the latter when designing.

Multilayered Structure of Text and Textures

CBR is constantly presenting graphic works that unravel existing objects or Korean images in a new and original way using "accumulation" and "overlapping" as motifs of its works. His work is all shaped, changed, and developed through form and texture, including experience, civilization, knowledge, and relationships. All of the densely generated elements will deliver a story that combines overlapping, stacking, and spreading phenomena into his own accumulated memories and visualizes them.

Stealing Tools

Tools, tooling, toolish. With a practice based in enthusiasm for experimentation and playfulness, Monica will go through a series of experiments with digital tools and online generators that she uses to build the graphic language of a self-inciated editorial project: Desde el estándar. It is within this interplay of possibilities and limitations of the medium that the project’s essence comes to life, as eccentric graphic elements and visuals coalesce.

On Designing Expressive Typefaces

Design gets particularly compelling when it comprises a rich network of meaningful references. Hoang Nguyen and David Gobber will talk about how this point of view shapes their design practice. A closer look at the typefaces Hofmann and Lucifer will provide insights into the origins of their expressive shapes and explain their deep roots in a Swiss design history beyond Swiss Style.

Performative Typography

This talk explores how we use bilingual typographic design to delve into culture.

Visual Narratives: Typing Letters and Connecting Words

What if a typeface itself could tell stories? I would like to share the approach and process of a new way of storytelling through the "Flefixx" project—an idiosyncratic visual language and typeface system that explores typography as a medium for storytelling. It's not about etymology; rather, it's a way to find and create images in the common combinations of letters that make up words. It allows to connect unrelated words into a sequence of narratives.

Technological Reappropriation as Artistic Practise

Jürg Lehni's works are the expression of an appreciation for technology as a common good that exists as part of cultural discourse and not outside of it. In his talk, he will focus on a reoccurring theme in this practise: the notion of reappropriating existing technologies, in a ongoing quest to find their often hidden poetic potential and treat them as open structures similar to our relationship with language, rather than as a means for large corporations to lock consumers into a seemingly cozy, standardised environment.

Hansje van Halem’s lecture is an immersive journey into the world of graphic design. With a blend of artistry and technology, Hansje van Halem explores intricate patterns, typography, and visual storytelling. Her work transcends traditional boundaries, offering fresh perspectives on design’s limitless possibilities. Van Halem’s lecture is a creative odyssey, inspiring both seasoned designers and newcomers to embrace the beauty of visual communication in new and exciting ways

Designing a variable typeface for AR

Why I made a variable font in Augmented Reality (AR). My process of making the font, and the challenges I faced during the development process. Also, talk about what opportunities arise when typography and AR are combined; how we can incorporate the principles of legibility in this new medium not in a traditional 2 dimensional way. Encourage designers to experiment with new ways of integrating typefaces into AR experiences.

Embracing Cultural Diversity with Bété Type Design.

In this talk, Yeo will delve into emphasizing the value of diverse cultural perspectives in design and the importance of celebrating and preserving indigenous scripts like the Bété script.

The Story of A Poem

My love for architecture, language, and Persian poetry has been the impetus for creating the pixelated type manifesting through a range of processes such as printmaking, 3D printing, installation and book arts in my practice. I have visually translated Samanbouyan, A 14’th Century Persian poem by Hafez, into contemporary pieces for contemplation through the modular treatment of the cube unit in creating typeface. This architectural script of Samanbouyan gains new meanings alongside an investigation through my father’s handwriting in the quest for my past.

The Alphabetical Room

“The Alphabetical Room” is a systematic exploration into the boundaries and limits of writing within a strictly calculated mathematical three dimensional grid within the flat digital space. Treating the three dimensional grid in the second dimensional digital space was always an intriguing matter for graphic designers, programmers, creative coders and visual artists. Starting from Josef-Müller Brockmann’s grid proposal for the design of interior spaces in 1961, the perspective of the viewer changes throughout the pages of the leaflet as does the resolution of the three dimensional grids in which the hypothetical letterforms are displayed.

The Pingpong Process

A walkthrough of the messy process of shuttling between tools, and throwing letterforms in the mix.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Presented is the talk "Everything Everywhere All At Once," drawing inspiration from my favourite movie. We'll discuss the challenges and opportunities of multidisciplinary practice. I'll share a real case study on exhibition design, where I merged all my toolkits into the EVA (Exposed Virtual Anonymity) project. Witness the integration of type design, kinetic typography, creative coding, augmented reality, virtual reality, touch design, all at once. It was overwhelming yet fascinating!

Material Type

Letterforms are languages presented in a visual form. For a very long time, they have remained entirely artificial, meticulously crafted by human beings, and for human beings to read. Human designers always intend to pursue perfection, even a tiny dot can be a critical design decision. However, imagine the existence of an “imperfect” type - letterforms are not “fully shaped by human hands”. This is how the idea for Material Type came to be. Material Type is a series of type projects exploring the natural properties of different materials and utilizing them as a foundation for typography design.

Transforming Type Thinking into Tangible Objects

Simon will talk about taking the keys to our Dinamo Hardware warehouse and the thought that goes into the details, nuances, materiality, and thinking around an object. He’ll discuss how and why we release objects into the world, from sourcing, research, and conceptualizing to production and packaging. He’ll also shine some light onto the ways that creating objects feeds back into our type design practice.

Between Gradients and Variable Typography

This talk will be about my experiences with experimental typography and the development of my most recent project: A variable typeface called Gradial. It is one of the first typefaces to support variable gradients under the new color font format COLRv1. The introduction of COLRv1 has opened up a whole new word of colorful and animated type on the web!

Leveling Up Design: Custom Tools For A Playful Creative Process

Coming from a type design background we realized how much tools can influence the trajectory of a design process. Our playful intuitive process is based on the development of custom digital tools that emulate toys rather than mere instruments. Swift iterations and an intuitive workflow dissolve cognitive constraints and create a playful mindset. Learning how to play with a new toy powers our curiosity. It fosters exploration, reduces overthinking and results in a more dynamic and imaginative visual output.

Interactive Light Installation

Kirklewski plans to speak about his most recent project, which is currently in progress and under NDA.